Corsair MP400 1TB, M.2 2280 / M-Key / PCIe 3.0 x4

Well, the MP400 is an interesting SSD to see come out this late in the game. Most companies have been focusing on their PCIe Gen 4 options but there are a lot of people who can’t even run Gen 4 SSDs yet so spending the higher prices on one wouldn’t make sense. I like the idea of bringing out lower-priced options for the mainstream. Corsair also has higher capacities in mind here. The MP400 is only available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB which is getting into the range where you aren’t worried about storage anymore where some of the lower capacity M.2 drives may still mean you need a traditional SSD or hard drive if you data horde or have a lot of games that you play.

Following up from our recent look at 8TB QLC SSDs, today we're taking a look at the 1TB Corsair MP400. This is a QLC NVMe SSD using the Phison E12 controller, which puts it a step up from earlier QLC SSDs that used four-channel Silicon Motion controllers. Unlike last week's review of 8TB SSDs, this time we're dealing with a much more affordable capacity of 1TB. At 8TB, many of the downsides of QLC NAND can be overcome by the sheer volume of flash memory, but this 1TB drive falls toward the low end of the QLC SSD capacity range and faces real competition from entry-level drives using TLC NAND.

Corsair might have something special here; the MP400 is ticking all the right boxes. Your QLC scare vanishes the second you opt for bigger volume sizes. I'm not sure if I would want that 1 TB version, but I would be very comfortable with 400TBW for the 2 TB version, and the 4TB version with 800 TBW is, of course, luxurious as these are values we have only seen in Samsungs PRO series NVME storage units. The performance is breathtaking as well; it's premium PCIe Gen 3.0 performance. Typically you'd hit a QLC write hole, however with 4TB and these eight NAND chips, and you're fully utilizing eight channels on the controller. That paired with a bit of a pSLC and DRAM buffer ultimately makes any write hole vanish. And we tested that up-to 110 GB continuously written and full hardcore speeds. Summed up, the MP400 really managed to make me think differently about QLC NAND. When volume goes up, you have more NAND cells available, which prolongs your endurance massively. When one can eliminate the QLC write hole, then there's little left to be worried about. Corsair back this up with a 5-year warranty on this series, 5-years or the TBW value reached, whichever one comes first. This series needs better prices though, at close to 600 EUR for 4TB, people will still purchase an HDD. I think once we reach 10 cents per GB, say 400 EUR for an SSD like this, that's where the industry will hit a sweet spot. But I am impressed, and I myself am a little shocked that I am impressed with a QLC based SSD rethinking all this. But yeah, that's Corsair for ya, always thinking outside the box. Noice!

At the end of the day the Corsair MP400 is a straight-forward product that was designed for those wanting a large PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD at respectable price point. The MP400 1TB model that we reviewed here today has an MSRP of $119. Online pricing is usually drops below the MSRP as time progresses, so we can see this drive being appealing to many gamers and enthusiasts. With some game titles having an installed size of over 200GB it only makes sense that we move to larger NVMe SSDs. The Corsair MP400 is able to deliver the performance and capacity that gamers need!