Corsair MP700 Elite 2TB with Heatsink Gen 5 SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Corsair MP700 Elite 2TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. 128KB Sequential Performance8. 4K Random Read v QD Performance9. 4K Random Write v QD Performance10. 4K 70/30 Mixed Performance11. 4K Random Performance QD1-QD812. Throughput13. PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark14. 3DMark Storage Benchmark 15. Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark16. Tempratures17. Real Life File Testing18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

The drive comes in a compact box with a clear image of the drive on the front. Under the image is a strip label with performance figures for sequential reads and writes along with the drive’s capacity. The rear of the box has multilingual information about the drive's performance and there is  a logo signifying the 5-year warranty Corsair backs the drive with.

The heatsink-equipped version of the MP700 Elite uses a two-part heat sink. The heatsink itself is constructed from aluminium and has a rough feeling finish. This sits on top of the drive in a cradle with four tiny screws joining the two parts together. There are thermal pads under the heatsink for the NAND and the controller. There are also pads in the cradle and they were so reluctant to release their grip on the drive that we gave up trying just in case something nasty happened to the drive. The heatsink adds 2mm to the width, and 7mm to the height to the basic drive.

The drive is a single-sided design with all the components on one side of the PCB.

The major components of the drive consist of a Phison PS5031-E31T controller and two 1TB (8 1Tb dies) packages of Kioxia BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC NAND sit on one side of the PCB.

Phison's PS5031-E31T is the company's second consumer Gen5 controller and is aimed at the mainstream end of the market rather than the high-end/enthusiastic market segment that the previous PS5026-E26 occupied. Unlike the 12nm process that the PS5026-E26 uses. the PS5031-E31T uses a 7nm process which brings with it better efficiency and even more importantly less heat generation. The E31T is a four-channel DRAM-less design (uses HMB technology instead of a dedicated DRAM IC) supporting up to 8TB of TLC or QLC NAND flash memory with data transfer speeds of up to 3600 MT/s.

 

 

 

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 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.

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