Corsair Neutron 240GB SSD Review – Link_A_Media Controller

When A Neutron Is Positive

On several occasions we’ve bemoaned the fact that there hasn’t been much variety in terms of SSD controllers and the SandForce drives have really saturated the market with drives that are all more or less the same, regardless of manufacturer, with few exceptions. So, we felt a bit exuberant when Corsair first told us about the upcoming Neutron series of drives that would feature a brand new controller. After a bit of a wait, a 240GB Neutron showed up at our doorstep, begging for attention.

The aforementioned controller comes courtesy of Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD) with a part number reference of LM87800. Corsair has the honor of debuting this controller in their Neutron series of drives for which they offer a GTX version as well that boasts slightly better performance. The 240GB version we tested has performance specifications of up to 555 MB/s read and up to 370 MB/s writes. These are decent numbers given that the controller does not use compression to boost performance so we expect to see benchmark scores relatively consistent, regardless of the data employed. Right now, the 240GB Neutron is selling for $199.99 and there currently is a $25 mail-in rebate that drops the cost down to $174.99 shipped.

Corsair Neutron 240GB SSD Features and Specifications:

• Warranty: Five years
• SSD Unformatted Capacity: 240 GB
• Max Sequential R/W (ATTO): 555 MB/s sequential read 370 MB/s sequential write
• Max Random 4k Write (IOMeter 08): 85k IOPS (4k aligned)
• Interface: SATA 6Gb/s
• Form Factor: 2.5 inch
• DRAM Cache Memory: 128MB
• Weight: .1kg
• Voltage: 5V 5%
• Power Consumption (active): 4.6W Max
• Power Consumption (idle/standby/sleep): 0.6W Max
• S.M.A.R.T. Support: Yes
• Shock: 1500 G
• MTBF: 2,000,000 hours

The exterior aluminum shell is grey and while the baseline Neutron drives feature a blue color scheme, the GTX version sports red. The form factor is 2.5″ although the drive height is 7mm, making it compatible with thinner devices like ultrabooks.

Corsair includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter plate for mounting in a chassis that may not support drives of this size. Let’s move on the fun part where we have a look inside.