Corsair Neutron Series GTX 2.5" 480GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CSSD-N480GBGTXB-BK

Pros: This is a ‘thin’ drive and thus it fits into my Lenovo U310 ultrabook so that was where it wound up. Most SSDs are 9mm and while they will fit into a desktop or an older or larger laptop, they are too tall for the vast majority of ultrabooks. The drive installed fine and loaded Windows 7 X64 quickly and without any problem. From pushing the power button to the Windows desktop takes a speedy 9 seconds. Web browsing is virtually instantaneous and programs spring onto the screen. If you have never experienced an SSD in a laptop, it’s an eye opening experience. Even putting an SSD in an older laptop can give it a new lease on life. This review is of the older Corsair Neutron SSD. You see there is a newer version out. The easy way to tell is that the older version has 120 gigs versus 128 for the new version. The controller stays the same and the only real change is to use 22mm Hynix NAND. The performance seems to stay fairly consistent but it’s best to read a real review if you want to know the details. The Neutron controller is a repurposed enterprise controller called a LAMD. Unless you are really into the nuts and bolts of SSDs you don’t need to know that except that the reliability of the controller gives the Neutron a 5 year warranty where some others only have 3 years. I only have 1 equivalent drive to compare the Neutron to. I have a 120 Gig Mushkin Chronos SSD in my production desktop. It’s an Ivy Bridge Core i5 system, the same as my ultrabook. The Mushkin has been in the system for approximately 6 months and is 34% filled. It is fast and responsive and I have absolutely no complaints about the performance. It’s not a slim drive so I can’t put it in the ultrabook so the results for the Mushkin are in the desktop. I say equivalent because SSDs tend to be slower the smaller they are. Are 240 gig SSD will always be faster than the same SSD at 60 gigs. I have a 32 gig Samsung mSATA drive in my ultrabook. It originally was used as a cache drive with a 500 gig mechanical hard drive in a RAID setup. Now I use it as a storage drive. I’ll throw in the results from this drive although it’s considerably smaller and thus slower than the Neutron. Corsair Neutron IOMeter Random write 86 IOPS IOmeter Random Read 90 IOPS Mushkin IOMeter Random write 59 IOPS IOmeter Random Read 16 IOPS I’m not sure why the Mushkin reads so low in Random Reads. It performs fine and even though it’s not as fast as the Chronos, it’s fast enough for basic computer tasks. But it’s obvious that the Neutron is much faster. Even running IOMeter and Crystal Disk Mark, it finished much quicker. Crystal Disk Mark results: Mushkin Chronos 120 Gig Sequential Read : 204.281 MB/s Sequential Write : 122.741 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 186.998 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 107.139 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 20.391 MB/s [ 4978.4 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 74.552 MB/s [ 18201.2 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 137.5

Cons: This is definitely a no-frills package. You get the SSD and a 3.5 adaptor plate and some screws. That’s it. The SSD case is light, cheap feeling aluminum or perhaps tin. But it does protect the important insides so it’s adequate. The Neutron GTX SSD is a SATA 3 drive and the shipping BIOS is M306.

Overall Review: OK, bottom line here. This is a good drive, worthy of your attention. It’s fast and the LAMD enterprise based controller gives you good reliability and a five year warranty. This 120 Gig drive is big enough for Windows 7 or 8 installation and some extra programs like Microsoft Office and Roxio or Nero. If you want to play games and install the games on the SSD then try the 240 gig version. If you have a laptop then you need this drive. The speed will amaze you and the power savings will add up over a mechanical drive. I have SSDs on all my computers and when I’m forced to work with a computer with a mechanical drive I find myself becoming impatient. Honestly, I don’t notice the difference in speed because it’s such a quantum increase from a mechanical drive. Look at the difference between the Mushkin and the Neutron but the only time I really noticed the speed increase of the Neutron was when I was actually running the benchmarks. I guess I’m saying any SSD, even a basic one, will blow you away if you’re running a mechanical hard drive. The Neutron has a lot going for it because the controller is based on an enterprise piece. It has special algorithms for fighting wear and tear and the reliability allows Corsair to give you a 5 year warranty. So why not buy an SSD that you know is going to be fast and reliable? It’s a no brainer to me.

Pros: Arrived in 2 days. Clever packaging. Large capacity. Only 7 millimeters high. Comes with a set of screws and desktop adapter tray. 3 year warranty (per website). Screaming fast. LAMD SATA 3 Controller.

Cons: I was debating whether lack of downloadable “cloning” software from Corsair should be a con. There are multiple dependable free and paid software solutions available on the internet to achieve this task. Additionally, some people will just opt for fresh OS install.

Overall Review: This kit is perfect for those who wish to do “fresh” OS installation. Those who wish to “clone” existing HD need to know how to secure their own “cloning” software. Desktop tray is included, so you are covered if you are planning to install this SSD in 3.5 desktop bay. Those who wish to clone their current OS to their new SSD will need to have their own hardware to establish this task. For laptop installations, this can be done with an external enclosure, HD dock etc. There are no installation instructions included, but to be fair all that information can easily be googled. Users can also install Corsair Toolbox (again no mention of this anywhere in the package). I wanted to use Corsair Toolbox to clone my old HD but the “cloning software” section of the Corsair toolbox is still “under construction”. Corsair sells a kit that includes a cloning cable and software, but that costs extra. I used free easeUS cloning software and an external HD enclosure. I cloned 74 GB of data from my wife’s older VAIO laptop HD. The whole cloning process took 55 minutes. I then swapped hard drives and the laptop booted without any issues whatsoever. My SSD came with firmware version M306. An update to version M310 was available in Corsair toolbox. My wife’s VAIO is few years old (2.2 GHZ, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, Windows 8 Pro). Even with these outdated specs, the laptop “cold-booted” to password screen in 14 seconds. After entering password it took additional 6 seconds to complete loading windows (with Norton NIS enabled). That is impressive. The shutdown takes about 16 seconds. All programs load at a very nice clip. Wife is truly impressed with the speed all Office 2010 programs load. I did some tests utilizing HD Tune software: Transfer rate: Min 153.6 MB/s, Max 192.1 MB/s, Average 180.1 MB/s, Access Time 0.164 MS File Benchmark: Sequential Read 246736 KB/S, Write: 192118 KB/S 4 KB random Read 4173 IOPS, 432 IOPS Generally, I am impressed with performance of this SSD that Corsair is calling its “flagship” SSD. I highly recommend this SSD. Whether you need to breathe new life into an older PC, you want to upgrade your laptop or you are building a performance machine, this SSD will not disappoint.

Pros: Low form factor which is good for slim notebooks, adapter included for 3.5 drive bays.Newest LAMD Controller which corsair has partnered with for that controller. LAMD has been know for years as the most stable enterprise class controller around so corsair went above and beyound to garantee their customers the best out there. Expect real stability and speeds faster than most. Instead of dealing with chancy firmware updates you can sit back and take it easy with these. Supports S>M>A>R>T>, TRIM and garbage collection. Is compatabile with windows 7,8,vista,xp, Linix and mac.

Cons: Little costly but i can see why.

Overall Review: I have used SSD for years and been thru the frequent crashes, lose everthing when you do a firmare update, For the standared consumer you are going get realibity, with the fastest speeds around. I made an image of my computer with windows 7 it was installed in less tan 15 minutes. Boot time between my other SSD's are harder to tell what is 1 to 4 seconds anyway...lol. If you buy one go to google and type in ssd setup for windows 7 and alot of good info will come up that you can use if you want. Thru my experiance i can garantee if you buy this you will love the stability of it. My other sata 3 SSD rates 545 at tops this one rated 749 i was suprised.So much easier to set up than say 5 years ago as easy as installing a regular hard drive with alot better results. Everone i know that has tried one has also said they will never go back to the other hard drives again. Use Corsair SSD Toolbox to help you set it up and manage it.

Pros: Small and appropriately sized packaging. Inclusion of a 3.5” mounting bracket. The height of the drive is 7 mm, making it a good fit for even the most cramped of laptops. Speed!!! The drive is very affordable given its performance and with the way the market is going it will probably become even more so. Apart from the speed you really wouldn't know this is an SSD.

Cons: Nope I have nothing! Seriously nothing! Perhaps a con could be the serious craving for another one?

Overall Review: First thing that struck me was the packaging, Corsair have done away with the needless flummery and dead air space you usually get in an SSD box, this package is a very tight fit for the drive, 3.5” mounting bracket and screws that came with it, (the screws come in tiny zip locks that have then been rolled up and taped, found it easier just to cut the bags in half than to try and get at them conventionally). This results in a very small box indeed, and of course with this having no moving parts it means that Newegg can ship it in a padded envelope, I was initially surprised when it arrived in said packaging but immediately saw the sense of it. This little drive is fast, I have in the past purchased 3 SSDs and use them on a couple of desktops and a laptop as boot drives and when installed I noticed a marked improvement in boot times, general snappiness of the OS etc., but none came close to the improvement I’ve seen with this drive. I mounted this SSD as a boot drive on an AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz machine sporting 16 GB of memory and SATA III ports. I then installed Ubuntu 13.04 from a USB flash drive and was mildly surprised at the speed of install, this is not my first walk in the park with an SSD so I expected a quick install but this did surprise me. What did shock me, however, was that from boot to desktop, ignoring BIOS screens it took about 6 seconds, a later install of Windows 8 Pro yielded 5 seconds. These are about half the times I get with a SATA II mounted Samsung 830, whichever way you look at it, this is fast. Disk reads and write speeds are phenomenal, fastest I’ve seen on my hardware. Using a 2MB file transfer I got Read: 450 MB/s Write:375 MB/s . Very satisfied, I might be tempted to buy a second one and RAID them just ‘cos!

Pros: Very fast and easy to install, comes with adaptor plate and screws. The SandForce controllors seem to have the bugs worked out of them.

Cons: No cons at this time.

Overall Review: Used this to update the wife's P45 system so I'm having to use SATA II rather than SATA III. Works faster in AHCI rather than IDE mode. Used a dual hotswap unit for mounting and all is fine, only took 2.5 hours from start to finnish for install and loading W7 32 bit OS with updates and software.

Pros: This is my first SSD after being on a 7200 RPM hard drive. It's the best upgrade you can give an aging system.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I chose this drive because of an ongoing experiment on The Tech Report http://techreport.com/review/25889/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-500tb-update That pretty much tells me this is the best drive around for longevity and consistency.

Pros: Fast and reliable. I installed it without an issue. Windows 7 installed without an issue

Cons: none

Overall Review: I bought one for myself in April. I bought a second one for my wife in June. I'll probably get a 3rd for my laptop. There are a lot of SSD install guides with tips for configuration: make sure your BIOS supports AHCI, disable Windows prefetch and superfetch. Some state that defrag should be disabled; however, it appears Windows 7 is SSD aware and won't attempt to defrag it. You can see for yourself by selecting the defrag schedule and then choose to select the drives. Your SSD won't show up. I left defrag on to keep two hard drives maintained.

Pros: With an Intel 2500k @4.5ghz, z68 asus mobo, and ddr3-1600, this drive reaches it's advertised speeds. For the people in these reviews that say it makes no improvement with games loading...that is a load of bull. I bought this for my gaming rig and the load times half been cut at the very least. Battlefield 3 on my old 1tb 7200rpm drive would take so long I could step away and make a quick sandwich. This neutron gtx loads every 64 player map within ten seconds and sometimes less. Always one of the first into a multiplayer game. I've owned quite a few other drives (ocz, corsair force, etc) and this one is clearly superior. Of you install it on the old sata II then three pyromancer will be cut to less than half of it's capability. This is the only reason I can think of why others didn't see such tremendous improvements.

Cons: None.