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The latest drive to join Corsair's Gen 5 stable of SSDs is the MP700 Micro. This, as you might have guessed from the name, is a small format M.2 2242 drive, aimed as a Gen 5 upgrade solution for gaming handhelds, thin and light laptops and compact workstations.
At launch, the MP700 Micro product line is made up of just two capacities: 2TB and a 4TB flagship, a very useful size in such a small format. Corsair sent us a 4TB drive for review.
The MP700 Micro utilises a Phison E31T DRAMless design controller, paired with a single 218-layer BiCS8 3D TLC NAND package. Corsair rates the Sequential performance of the drive as up to 10,000 MB/s for reads and 8,500 MB/s for writes. The 4TB drive's performance is quoted as (as stated on the box) up to 9,400MB/s for reads and up to 8,100MB/s for writes. Random 4K performance is quoted as up to 1.3 million IOPS for reads and up to 1.4 million IOPS.
Corsair backs the drive with a 5-year warranty.
Physical Specifications:
- Usable Capacities: 4TB.
- NAND Components: 218-layer BiCS8 3D TLC.
- NAND Controller: Phison PS5031-E31T.
- Cache: None, DRAMless design (HMB).
- Interface: PCIe Gen 5 x4, NVMe 2.0.
- Form Factor: M.2 2242.
- Dimensions: 22 x 42 x 3mm.
- Drive Weight: 4g.
Firmware Version: EVFM01.1
The MP700 Micro 4TB comes in a very compact box, finished in the familiar yellow and black that Corsair uses across its product range. The front of the box has a clear image of the drive on it, and under this is a strip label with performance figures for the sequential read/write performance as well as the drive’s capacity. The rear of the box has multilingual information about the drive's performance and a logo displaying the fact that the drive comes with a 5-year warranty.
The 4TB MP700 Micro is built on a single-sided M.2 2242 format. Under the front label, which incorporates a copper foil to help with heat dissipation, is the Phison PS5031-E31T controller and a single 4TB 218-layer BiCS8 NAND package.
Phison's second consumer Gen 5 controller, the PS5031-E31T, is built on a 7nm process, which enables better efficiency and, even more importantly, less heat generation. A four-channel DRAM-less design (uses HMB technology instead of a dedicated DRAM IC), the E31T supports up to 8TB of TLC or QLC NAND flash memory with data transfer speeds of up to 3600 MT/s. It uses Phison's 7th-generation LDPC ECC engine for increased data reliability and supports AES256, TCG OPAL 2.01, and Pyrite 2.01 security.
Corsair’s SSD management utility is called SSD Toolbox. It's not the funkiest-looking GUI we've ever seen, but having said that, it does give you all you really need to keep an eye on the drive. It provides drive information and S.M.A.R.T details and also supports firmware updates, secure wiping of the drive, drive optimisation and usefully incorporates a disk cloning utility.
To test the Corsair MP700 Micro 4TB in one of our test rigs, we used the Gen 5 version of the Sabrent NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe x16/x8/x4 AIC we used to test the Gen 4 small format drives in the past. The Sabrent EC-TFPE is compatible with 2230 / 2242 / 2260 / 2280 form factors.
For more details, check the Sabrent website.
For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. We try to use free or easily available programs and some real-world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.
This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.
Main system:
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, 32GB DDR5-6000, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 and a Gigabyte AORUS X670E Xtreme motherboard.
Other drives
Biwin Black Opal X570 PRO 4TB
Biwin Black Opal X570 PRO 2TB
ADATA Legend 970 2TB
Corsair MP700 PRO SE 4TB
Corsair MP700 PRO 2TB
Corsair MP700 Elite 2TB
Crucial T705 2TB
Crucial T700 2TB
Crucial T700 with Heatsink 2TB
Gigabyte AORUS 10000 2TB
Kingston Fury Renegade G5 2TB
Kioxia Exceria Plus G4 2TB
Klevv Genuine G360 2TB
Samsung SSD 9100 PRO 2TB
Seagate FireCuda 520 2TB
SanDisk WD Black SN8100 2TB
Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark 4 & 5.
CrystalDiskMark 8.0.0.
AS SSD 2.0.
IOMeter.
UL Solutions PC Mark 10.
UL Solutions 3DMark Storage Benchmark.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark.
All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration; this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behaviour query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.
CrystalDiskMark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSDs. We are using v8.0.5.
Corsair's 4TB MP700 Micro performs well in the CrystalDiskMark 8 4K QD1 T1 test; its read score of 89.5MB/s puts it into sixth place in the results chart, although its write score of 302.17MB/s isn't as strong as its immediate competitors around it in the chart.
As you can see from the benchmarking screens, we could confirm the official maximum Sequential read figure of 9,400MB/s with a test result of 9,447MB/s from the default test. The write result of 7,940MB/s is a little shy of the official maximum of 8,100MB/s.
That 9,447MB/s read result sees the MP700 Micro propping up the results chart.
Peak Performance Profile
We can confirm the official random 4K figures for the drive of up to 1,300,000 IOPS for reads and up to 1,400,000 IOPS for writes, and even better than that, using the Peak Performance profile of CrystalDiskMark 8 with default test results of 1,346,718 IOPS for reads and 1,530,463 IOPS for writes. Looking at the result screens, it appears that the drive doesn't have a preference for what type of data it is being asked to handle.
As with the default CrystalDiskMark 8 test, the Sequential read results from the Peak Performance profile shows the drive sitting in last place in the table.
Real World Profile
The Corsair MP700 Micro sits in last place in the CrystalDiskMark 8 Real World result table with a read score of 5,194MB/s, but its write result of 7,598MB/s is much stronger.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage system's performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customise your performance measurement, including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturer's RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. ATTO uses RAW or compressed data.
We are using version 4.1 for our NVMe disk tests with a set length of 256mb and testing both the read and write performance, but we will be switching over to version 5.0.
Using the ATTO 4 benchmark, we couldn't hit the official read and write sequential figures of 9,400MB/s and 8,100MB/s for read and writes, respectively, with test figures of 8,790MB/s for reads and 7,440MB/s for writes.
Using the ATTO 5 benchmark, we could confirm the official maximum read figure with a test result of 9,420MB/s, pretty much bang on the official rating. The write result of 7,790MB/s was some 130MB/s short of the official maximum.
AS SSD is a great free tool designed just for benchmarking Solid State Drives. It performs an array of sequential read and write tests, as well as random read and write tests with sequential access times over a portion of the drive. It uses
incompressible data samples, which many drives struggle with, so results can be viewed as the worst case scenarios.
AS SSD includes a sub suite of benchmarks with various file pattern algorithms, but this is difficult in trying to judge accurate performance figures.
With an AS SSD read score of 3304, Corsair's MP700 Micro sits in last place in the results chart; however, its write score of 6012 is much stronger.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the Sequential read and write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
128KB Sequential Read / Write.
Transfer Request Size: 128KB, Thread(s): 1, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
Using these tests, the reads came in bang on the money for the official maximum, yielding a test result of 9,405MB/s. Writes, on the other hand, were just shy of the official figure at 8,060MB/s.
128KB Sequential Read v QD performance
Compared to the drives around it, the MP700 Micro performs best at QDs 2 and 4.
128KB Sequential Write v QD performance
When it comes to Sequential write performance, the drive props up the table at every tested queue depth. It's closest to the next drive in the table at QD2.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the 4K random read performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
Using our four-threaded 4K random read tests, we couldn't get close to the official maximum of 1,300K IOPS. The best figure we saw was 504,638 IOPS (2,066MB/s) at the end of the test run at QD32.
4K Random Read v QD Performance
At QD1, the drive sits towards the bottom of the table, sitting between the 2TB Corsair MP700 and the 4TB MP700 PRO SE. As the queue depth deepens, the drive starts to drop down the table, but at QD32 it stages a slight recovery.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the 4K random write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
As with the random read results with our four threaded random write tests, we couldn't get close to the official maximum of 1,400K IOPS. The best we saw from testing was 438,553 IOPS (1,796MB/s) at QD16.
4K Random Write v QD Performance
At QDs 1 and 2, the drive sits in the penultimate place in the result tables. As the queue depth deepened, the drive moved up four places on the charts at QD4 and 32, in the process passing the 2TB version of Corsair's MP700 Elite with Heatsink drive.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8’s custom settings to test the 4K 70/30 mixed read/write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths using a single thread and four threads.
Using the four threaded 4K 70/30 read/write tests, the performance of the 4TB Corsair MP700 Micro ranges from 107,381 IOPS (439.83MB/s) at QD1 to 489,884 IOPS (2,006.56MB/s) at QD16 before fading slightly to finish the test run at QD32 at 483,805 IOPS (1,981.68MB/s). Switching over to a single thread, the test results range from 22,237 IOPS (91.08MB/s) at QD1 up to 190,542 IOPS (780.45MB/s) at QD32.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8 to test the random performance of the drive at lower queue depths (QD1 – QD8, where most of the everyday workloads occur) using 1 to 4 threads.
Random Reads
In the QD1-QD8 random read tests, the 4TB MP700 Micro produced smooth increases in performance as the queue depth deepened without any noticeable dramas. QD1 performance ranges from 21,423 IOPS (87.74MB/s) up to 84,123 IOPS (344.56MB/s) using four threads. At the end of the test run at QD8, the single thread performance had risen to 154,698 IOPS (633.23MB/s) while using four threads, the drive gave a result of 439,704 IOPS (1,801.03MB/s).
Random Writes
In the 4K write tests, the performance rose quickly from QD1 to QD2 for all four tested threads, with the fastest rise seen in the three and four-threaded tests. At QDs 1,3, and 4, the acceleration slowed between QD2 and QD4 before levelling off. With two threads, the performance plateaued off from QD2 until the end of the test run.
In our read-throughput test, the 4TB MP700 Micro peaked at 6,820.59MB/s at the 16MB block mark, some way off the official maximum of 9,400MB/s.
That test result of 6,820.59MB/s sees the drive placed at the bottom of our results chart.
In the write-throughput test, the drive's performance peaked at the end of the test at 7,727.68 MB/s, 373MB/s shy of the official maximum.
With a test result of 7,727.68MB/s, the 4TB Corsair MP700 Micro sits at the bottom of the table.
The PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives. The benchmark is designed to measure the performance of fast system drives using the SATA bus at the low end and devices connected via PCI Express at the high end.
The goal of the benchmark is to show meaningful real-world performance differences between fast storage technologies such as SATA, NVMe, and Intel’s Optane. The Full System Drive Benchmark uses 23 traces, running 3 passes with each trace. It typically takes an hour to run.
Traces used:
Booting Windows 10.
Adobe Acrobat – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Illustrator – starting the application until usable. Adobe Premiere Pro – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Photoshop – starting the application until usable.
Battlefield V – starting the game until the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4 – starting the game until the main menu.
Overwatch – starting the game until main menu.
Using Adobe After Effects.
Using Microsoft Excel.
Using Adobe Illustrator.
Using Adobe InDesign.
Using Microsoft PowerPoint.
Using Adobe Photoshop (heavy use).
Using Adobe Photoshop (light use).
cp1 Copying 4 ISO image files, 20 GB in total, from a secondary drive to the target drive (write test).
cp2 Making a copy of the ISO files (read-write test).
cp3 Copying the ISO to a secondary drive (read test).
cps1Copying 339 JPEG files, 2.37 GB in total, to the target drive (write test).
cps2 Making a copy of the JPEG files (read-write test).
cps3 Copying the JPEG files to another drive (read test).
Using PCMark10's Full System Drive Benchmark, the six Adobe startup traces produced an average of 239MB/s, with the fastest being the Adobe Premiere Pro startup trace at 351MB/s, with the Lightroom trace the slowest at 218MB/s. For the five usage traces, the fastest was, as usual, the Photoshop heavy usage trace at 1,229MB/s, and including this result, the drive averaged 572.4MB/s for the five traces.
The three gaming traces produced an average result of 753MB/s, the fastest being Battlefield V at 990MB/s. Next came Call Of Duty Black Ops 4 at 780MB/s, followed by Overwatch at 489MB/s. When it came to the six file transfers, the drive averaged 2,9177MB/s with the fastest being the cp1 Write test at 5,400MB/s.
With an overall bandwidth figure of 609.44MB/s, the 4TB MP700 Micro sits in the lower half of the results chart.
The 3DMark Storage Benchmark uses traces recorded from popular games and gaming-related activities to measure real-world gaming performance.
Traces used:
Battlefield V
Loading Battlefield™ V from launch to the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4
Loading Call of Duty®: Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
Overwatch
Loading Overwatch® from launch to the main menu.
Game Move
Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike®: Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.
Game Recording
Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch®.
Installing Game
Installing The Outer Worlds® from the Epic Games Launcher.
Game Saving
Saving progress in The Outer Worlds game.
In the Game Loading test, the Corsair MP700 Micro sits in third from last spot in the table, just behind Corsair's MP700 Elite with Heatsink.
Corsair's MP700 Micro is just below the MP700 Elite with Heatsink in third from last spot in the Game Move, Recording, Install and Save tests, but its slower access times in all four tests (bar the Game Recording test) see it in last place in this particular table.
In the overall bandwidth result for the test run, the 4TB MP700 Micro's score of 658.62MB/s sees it in third from last position.
The Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark uses actual maps and playable characters to assign a score to your PC and rate its performance, including scene loading times.
The benchmark gives an overall load time as well as loading times by scene.
Overall, the 4TB Corsair MP700 Micro sits third from bottom in the results chart. It performs best in Load Scene 1, where it just sits outside the top ten.
We took note of the drive’s temperature during some of our benchmarking runs.
Corsair's MP700 Micro has a layer of copper foil built into the product label to help with heat dispersal. We used a Sabrent EC-TFPE AIC to test the drive, and this uses two thermal pads to sandwich the drive. The hottest the drive got was 62° C while running the CrystalDiskMark 8 default Write test. It averaged 57° C for the bulk of the testing, with the 4K tests averaging 46° C.
To test the real-life performance of a drive, we use a mix of folder/file types and use the FastCopy utility (which gives a time as well as MB/s result).
Data file – 100GB.
BluRay Movie – 42GB.
Movie demos 8K – 21GB – (11 demos).
Raw Movie Clips 4K – 16GB – (9 MP4V files).
Movie folder – 12GB – 15 files – (8 @ .MKV, 4 @ .MOV, 3 @ MP4).
Photo Folder – 10GB – 304 files – (171 @ .RAW, 105 @ JPG, 21 @ .CR2, 5 @ .DNG).
Audio Folder – 10GB – 1,483 files – (1479 @ MP3, 4 @ .FLAC files).
Single large image – 5GB – 1.5bn pixel photo.
3D Printer File Folder – 4.25GB – (166 files – 105 @ .STL, 38 @ .FBX, 11 @ .blend, 5 @ .lwo, 4 @ .OBJ, 3@ .3ds).
AutoCAD File Folder – 1.5GB (80 files – 60 @ .DWG and 20 @.DXF).
The 4TB Corsair MP700 Micro averaged 4,578MB/s when writing the contents of the 10 real-life transfer tests, with the fastest being the 7,263MB/s (2 secs) for the 4K Movie Clip folder and the slowest the 507MB/s (106 secs) for the 50GB File folder transfer.
Reading the data back, the drive averaged 4,839MB/s, with the fastest performance coming with the 100GB data file at 6,186MB/s (17 secs), with the 50GB file transfer again the slowest, this time at 1,113MB/s (49 secs).
Corsair already offers a number of small format SSDs, including the MP600 Mini and Core Mini (M.2 2230), alongside the MP600 Micro (M.2 2242), all utilising PCIe Gen 4 interfaces. Joining these and bringing the format up to date is the M.2 2242 MP700 Micro, now using a Gen 5 interface.
At launch, the MP700 Micro comes in just two capacities: 2TB, and a flagship 4TB unit (the drive Corsair provided for review). The drive uses a Phison PS5031-E31T, 4-channel controller (with data transfer speeds of up to 3600 MT/s) together with a single 218-layer BiCS8 NAND package. The E31T is an ideal controller to use in small-format drives as it is a DRAM-less design (uses HMB technology instead of a dedicated DRAM IC), negating the space needed for a separate cache IC.
Corsair rates the 4TB drive at up to 9,400MB/s and 8,100MB/s for sequential reads/writes, respectively. Random 4K performance for the MP700 Micro is quoted as up to 1.3 million IOPS for reads and up to 1.4 million IOPS for writes.
When tested with the ATTO 4 benchmark, we couldn't quite hit those official sequential maximums with a best read result of 8,790MB/s with writes at 7,440MB/s. Switching over to the more up-to-date ATTO 5, we could confirm the official read figure with a test result of 9,420MB/s. Writes of 7,790MB/s, on the other hand, were still shy of the official rating.
When it comes to 4K random performance, Corsair rates the MP700 Micro at up to 1.3 million IOPS for reads and up to 1.4 million IOPS for writes. 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 with best test results of 1,346,718 IOPS for reads and 1,530,463 IOPS for writes.
The 4TB Corsair MP700 Micro has an MSRP of £479.99, while the 2TB model is £209.99.
Pros
- Performance.
- Capacity in a small format.
- 5-year warranty.
Cons
- We couldn’t match the official maximum 4K random figures in all our testing.
- DRAM-less design.
- Pricey.
KitGuru says: Corsair continues to develop its small format drive line, and the latest offering, the Gen5 4TB MP700 Micro, shows what can be achieved in a small format using a small DRAMless design controller and dense NAND Flash.
