Corsair MP600 Core Mini SSD Review

Corsair has currently two drives vying for market share in the Gen 4 M.2 2230 SSD market segment, the MP600 Mini and the Core Mini (the drive we are reviewing here). What's the difference you may ask, well the Mini uses 3D TLC NAND and at the time of writing only comes in a 1TB version while the Core Mini uses 3D QLC NAND and comes in both 1TB and 2TB versions.

At the heart of the MP600 Core Mini is a Phison PS5027-E27T 4-channel PCIe 4.0 controller looking after a single package of 176-layer 3D QLC NAND. The PS5027-E27T is a DRAM-less design which relies on HMB (Host Memory Buffer) technology to perform any caching duties.

Official sequential ratings for the 1TB Core Mini drive are up to 5,000MB/s for reads with writes at up to 3,800MB/s. Testing the drive with the CrystalDiskMark 8 default settings we could confirm the official figures with test results of 5,137.99MB/s for reads and 3,947.65MB/s for writes. The controller seems to have a preference for handling compressible data as switching over to the 0 fill CrystalDiskMark 8 test saw the read result rise to 7,361MB/s while writes rose to 5,526MB/s.

Random 4K performance is quoted as up to 650,000 IOPS reads and an impressive up to 900,000 IOPS for writes for the 1TB drive. Using the default Peak Performance profile in CrystalDiskMark 8 which displays the IOPS result for the test run we could confirm the official read ratings. The best read test result was 711,472.66 IOPS but we couldn't get close to the write maximum as the best write result we saw was 611, 705.57 IOPS, so way off the official maximum.

Endurance for the 1TB MP600 Core Mini is quoted at a modest 250TBW and Corsair backs the drive with a 5-year warranty.

We found the 1TB Corsair MP600 Core Mini on Amazon for £67.99 (inc VAT) HERE.

Pros

• Overall Performance.
• 2TB option.
• 5-year warranty.

Cons

• Couldn’t match the official maximum 4K random write figures in some of our testing.
• DRAM-less design.
• QLC NAND may put some people off.
• Endurance.

KitGuru says: Corsair's MP600 Core Mini range offers a 2TB model which is something the original MP600 Core lacked as it was only available as a 1TB unit. The Core Mini brings slightly faster Sequential read performance than the Mini but has slower write speeds. The real difference between the two is that the Core Mini uses 3D QLC NAND (the Mini uses 3D TLC NAND) which may put some people off. 

Become a Patron!