Corsair P256 256GB MLC Solid State Drive Review

The Samsung 2nd Gen Controller

Opening up the Corsair P256 Solid State drive I found what looked to be none other than a Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD! It looks like Corsair has re-badged the Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD, which is great news as that drive is fast!

This 256GB SSD consists of sixteen K9MDGZ8U5M-SCK0 Multi-Layer Cell (MLC) flash chips that are all double stacked.

In case you aren’t sure what double stacked means, here is a picture of the double stacked IC’s. Just like it sounds, the ICs are stacked two high and this drive had sixteen pairs of memory ICs, so it has a total of 32 ICs.

Taking the PCB out and flipping it over, we see the other six pairs of MLC Flash chips and the controller and cache chips.

The heart of the P256 is the new Samsung S3C29RBB01-YK40 controller that is used in the drive. This is a second generation controller and is fast!

Below the Samsung controller is a single Samsung memory IC that is used for the cache of the drive. The chip is labeled K4X1G323PD-8GC6, which is a 128MB DDR memory chip! That means this drive has a 128MB cache size!