Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB SSD Review

Corsair Pressures The Competition

Back in September, we had a chance to have some quality hands-on time with Corsair’s Neutron Series drive with the brand new Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD) LM87800 controller. Much to our dismay, we weren’t immediately able to get the flagship GTX version to do a side by side comparison. However, we now have a 240GB GTX drive in our possession and the delay has given us the benefit of observing user experience in the wild to see how this new controller is getting along. First, we’ll have a closer look at the drive and some performance metrics as we normally do.

Currently on the open market for $250, the GTX is the faster of the Neutron series drives as the name and fiery colors imply. It’s also available in a smaller 120GB version (CSSD-N120GBGTX-BK) as well as a rotund 480GB capacity (CSSD-N480GBGTX-BK) drive. All carry a hefty 5-year warranty and some pretty impressive specifications. The 240GB version we received can hit reads of up to 555MB/s and writes of up to 511MB/s. I’m not sure why Corsair felt the need to get that extra 1MB/s in there instead of rounding to 510MB/s but I’m not in the marketing business so what do I know? In addition, IOPS performance hits 90,000/85,000 reads/writes which varies a bit with what is printed on the packaging we received.

Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB (CSSD-N240GBGTX-BK) Features and Specifications:

• Warranty: Five years
• SSD Unformatted Capacity: 240 GB
• Max Sequential R/W (ATTO): 555 MB/s sequential read 511 MB/s sequential write
• Max Random 4k Write (IOMeter 08): 85k IOPS (4k aligned)
• Interface: SATA 6Gb/s
• Technology: Toggle NAND
• 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

Inside the box, a 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter plate is included with necessary supporting hardware as well as a small brochure outlining the warranty information. The design and appearance only vary from the non-GTX version in the color scheme with a red/white/black design rather than the blue/white/black colors. Red products generally connote speed and there’s plenty of that with the Neutron GTX!

Pesky warranty void stickers wrap around the backside but we make short work of them on the next page.