Corsair Neutron (& GTX) Series SSDs Review

• Corsair Neutron Series & Neutron Series GTX SSDs Review

There's almost always some very cool unexpected news announced each year at Computex and we have some this year. Corsair has proudly announced the Neutron Series and Neutron Series GTX Series SSDs. These SSDs come in fast, and faster configurations respectively. Both are based on a new SSD controller exclusive to Corsair, the LM87800 6Gb/s SSD controller from Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD).

Here's the Neutron Series SSD. Neutron Series SSDs are based on Micron ONFI NAND flash and it is extremely fast.

Neutron Series SSDs
Neutron Series SSDs deliver both super-high IOPs — important for data-intensive tasks like video and image editing — as well as superior sequential read speeds for lighting fast file access. They offer impressive read speed regardless of data type, avoiding the issues that some SSDs have with reading compressed data, such as video files. It's performance that goes beyond benchmark scores, and speed you can count on no matter what type of work you do on your PC.


Neutron Series GTX SSDs are built with Toshiba Toggle-Mode NAND for even faster performance.

Neutron Series GTX SSDs
The extreme performance Neutron Series GTX uses toggle NAND flash memory for super-high speeds, and advanced signal processing technology for excellent drive lifespan. Neutron Series GTX is designed to support complex data-intensive work that involves accessing multiple files simultaneously — video production, large-scale graphics editing, or running multiple office applications at once. Neutron GTX's flagship credentials also include super-fast sequential write speeds for both compressed and non-compressible data. Saving large videos and images happens so quickly, the first time it happens, you might have trouble believing that it's really working!


Neutron Series and Neutron Series GTX use a new advanced Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD) SATA 3 6Gb/s SSD controller for outstanding solid-state storage performance. Neutron Series SSDs give you strong overall storage performance without the tradeoffs inherent with some other drives, and our flagship Neutron Series GTX goes one better with incredibly fast sequential write speeds. If your data-intensive work demands superior real-world performance, there's a Neutron Series SSD that meets your needs.

Available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB and 480GB, Neutron Series GTX SSDs are designed with toggle NAND flash memory to deliver up to a super-high 90,000 random read and write IOPs (input/output operations per second), which speeds up data-intensive tasks like video and image editing. These drives also provide superior sequential speeds of up to 555 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write, for lightning fast file access. The standard Neutron Series SSDs, available in 120GB and 240GB capacities, provide up to 90,000 random read IOPs and 85,000 random write IOPs with sequential speeds of up to 555 MB/s read and 370 MB/s write.

Broad PC and Notebook Compatibility Neutron Series and Neutron Series GTX SSDs follow the universal 2.5" standard, and easily mount in desktop PCs with 2.5" drive bays. Or, mount it in a hard drive bay using the included 3.5"adapter. The 7mm height fits both standard notebooks as well as the latest generation of slim notebook designs. If you're considering upgrading your notebook to something slimmer, your Neutron can move with it.

All Neutron Series SSDs incorporate LAMD's powerful on-the-fly error correction and advanced NAND management technologies which improve the endurance of onboard flash memory, giving the SSDs enhanced reliability and durability. Neutron Series GTX SSDs also include adaptive DSP technology which maintains superior performance throughout the lifetime of the SSD. Neutron Series and Neutron Series GTX SSDs are backed with a five year warranty.

Neutron Series SSDs provide impressive read and write speeds with both compressed and non-compressible data regardless of file type. This is a significant advantage compared to other SSDs on the market which offer quick load times with compressible files, but get bogged down significantly when reading compressed data such as video files.

We'll have much more technically oriented material later but first, here's some early performance marks based on some well established benchmarks.

ATTO is an industry standard test for measuring disk performance. From the ATTO website:

"As the industry's leading provider of high-performance storage connectivity products, ATTO has created a widely-accepted Disk Benchmark freeware utility to help measure storage system performance. Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, solid state drives, RAID arrays as well as connections to storage."

Here's an ATTO screenshot from the Neutron (left) and the Neutron Series GTX (right). As noted, fast and faster!

In many past SSD articles, we've included the FutureMark 3DMark Vantage HD Suite results. This benchmark is a very good indicator of what many refer to as "real world performance". Again Neutron Series SSDs are a very strong performer but Neutron Series GTX pulls ahead again due to the Toshiba Toggle-Mode NAND flash.

Another test we've used in our past SSD articles is a basic file transfer test to take a look at SSDs in another "real world" situation. I compiled a 21.9GB master file filled with all sorts of stuff. It's filled with music, movies, and Office files. There are also quite a few .RAR files in there also to provide some incompressible files. Once again, Neutron Series was fast and Neutron Series GTX was faster.

The motherboard was the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme Z. Both the Neutron Series SSDs were connected to the SATA3/6GB headers. The source drive was a RAID 0 stripe of 2 x 120GB Force GT SSDs transferring the files to the Neutron and Neutron Series GTX. They both made very quick work of the 21.9GB files with the copy times of 1min 21s and 1min 10s respectively.

Here's a good look at the IOMeter IOPs and Crystal Disk Sequential Read and Write Performance:

Neutron Series and Neutron Series GTX are two exceptionally fast SSDs with blazing performance in all the areas where it counts. You can now harness the power of the Neutron for your system!






Data taken from http://www.corsair.com/en/blog/neutron-gtx-ssd and http://www.corsair.com/neutron (accessed on June 18 2012)

Share this post