Storage

Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB Review

vortez
September 3, 2012 10 Min Read
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Can the new Neutron GTX Series with Link_A_Media (LAMD) Controller affirm itself as a worthy contender for the SSD crown? Find out in our review!



Product on Review: Neutron GTX
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Corsair
Street Price: £210 / $239 (At time of review)

Back in June Corsair announced the Neutron Series. A new SSD range; a new controller. Moving away from the comforts of SandForce is certainly a bold move, but a necessary one. SandForce has its limitations and of course has had its pitfalls too.

Driven by a Link_A_Media (LAMD) Controller Neutron GTX is backed by Toshiba Toggle Flash NAND and boasts better random read/write speeds as well as sequential performance too. Corsair have extended warranty with the Neutron Series also, the usual 3 years warranty is a thing of the past – make way for a superior 5 years warranty instead. Neutron GTX is shaping up to be a very competent offering so let’s waste no further time and begin analysis.



Corsair on Neutron GTX:
The extreme performance Neutron Series GTX uses toggle NAND flash memory for super-high speeds, and advanced signal processing technology for excellent drive lifespan. Neutron Series GTX is designed to support complex data-intensive work that involves accessing multiple files simultaneously — video production, large-scale graphics editing, or running multiple office applications at once.

Neutron GTX’s flagship credentials also include super-fast sequential write speeds for both compressed and non-compressible data. Saving large videos and images happens so quickly, the first time it happens, you might have trouble believing that it’s really working!

Technical 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
No
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

Packaging, Bundle & Closer Look


You can instantaneously associate Neutron GTX’s packaging with a premium product. The design is both very professional and captivating – on the front there are details concerning the capacity, interface, size and series of this SSD, our sample today is of course 240GB. On the back there is a description of the SSD in English and other languages.


Packaging for Neutron GTX


Within the packaging are a number of items that make up the bundle. These items include: 3.5” adapter plate, fitting screws, warranty leaflet and of course the SSD itself.


A 3.5” adapter plate is included within the bundle


The most immediate factor to notice when taking the Neutron GTX out of its packaging is its super lightweight attributes. Weighing a mere 100 grams this SSD is amongst the lightest available and perfect for installing within a notebook were the idea is to keep weight to a minimum. On the front of the drive there is a large label not that dissimilar to the packaging. Again on this label there are details listing the capacity, interface, series and serial number of this SSD.

Turning the driver over there is a plain metal panel. Both the front and back panels are steel and are smooth in texture. There are no screws holding the front and back of Neutron GTX together, but instead a snap-fit method has been implemented.


The front of Neutron GTX



Smooth, lightweight, steel double casing

Closer Look (Internal)


** Opening an SSD voids warranty and should be done at the user’s own risk **

Unlike other drives, the Neutron GTX has to be pried open as it features a snap-fit design. Upon taking the front cover off the drive, this reveals the backside of the PCB.


Front covered removed – access to back of PCB


To gain access to the other side of the PCB, three screws must be removed. We can now take a look at the critical components that make-up Neutron GTX. Our drive uses Toshiba 25nm Toggle MLC NAND and in the very centre is Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD). This is the first time Corsair have used LAMD, its key benefits include being able to handle extremely high IOPS plus sequential transfer rates when compared to other drives that are SandForce driven for example. The LAMD controller has a thermal adhesive pad covering to – this sandwiches between the cover and the controller when both sides are fixed in place.


An overview of critical components within Neutron GTX



Link A Media – LAMD controller

Test Setup & Methodology


Our SSDs have recently been moved to a new test system as the Intel P67 setup has been decommissioned for the newer Intel Z77. As a result, the database whilst still having a reasonable number of test subjects to compare against isn’t as extensive as we would like so keep a look out over the coming weeks for more additions!

The system is formatted and a fresh version of Windows is installed with just drives in place – no additional applications. Windows is then updated to the latest release and the drivers are installed. Included in the list of benchmarks are the following applications:

Benchmarks
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
AS SSD
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Iometer
SiSoftware SANDRA 2012
Windows 7 Boot Time Test


Test system
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K
Motherboard MSI Z77A-GD65
Graphics MSI R7970 Black Edition
Memory 8GB Corsair Vengeance 2133MHz
HDD
– Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Force GS 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 4 128GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– ADATA S510 120GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Intel 520 480GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 830 Series 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung HD103SJ 1TB (Sata 3Gbps)
PSU OCZ 750W Fatal1ty
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit

Benchmarks: ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.



Benchmarks: AS SSD

AS SSD Benchmark is a straightforward tool for measuring the speed of your SSD drive.

Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).



Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive. Giving sequential benchmark write and read statistics in MB/s. A simple program that is very useful.



Benchmarks: IOMeter

Iometer is based on a client–server model, where one instance of the Iometer graphical user interface is managing multiple ‘workers’ (each one representing a separate Dynamo.exe process) which are doing the I/O. Iometer performs Asynchronous I/O – accessing files or block devices (later one allowing to bypass the file system buffers).

Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.


For the purpose of this test. The 4K 50%/50% read/write file will be under the examination with 100% Random Distribution – reporting back on IOPS and MBs per Second.



Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA 2012

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.



Benchmarks: Windows 7 Boot

Synthetic testing is valuable in the examination of Solid State Drives. But some of the tests may not mean all that much to some readers so the final test in this review is a real world test showing the Windows 7 boot time.

In order to perform this test (and indeed all other benchmarks), a fresh install of Windows 7 Professional was installed on the Neutron GTX – the image of this install with no additional applications or drivers was exported for importing onto each drive at the time of testing. This will provide a clean and fair environment for comparing the boot times on each of the drives. The times were monitored using a stopwatch.

Conclusion


Was moving away from SandForce a good decision? Does this new LAMD Controller have any real advantage over SandForce? It certainly does.

We heard on the grapevine that the Neutron series would be something special and today’s review has definitely revealed this. If you cast your eyes over the benchmarks on the former pages of this review there is clearly some very exciting results. Never have we seen such a consistently impressive drive demonstrate great performance; sequentially. SandForce driven drives have a limitation in this specific arena, whilst they do provide good read performance and sequential read performance the same cannot be said for the write and write sequential statistics. This drive pushes SSD performance boundaries and is affirmed as one of the best SSDs to date.



Indicative of the recent price crash, the Neutron GTX is found at an inviting sub £ per GB – and even less than $ per GB too. Priced at around £210 / $240 great performance has been made affordable. Furthermore this is all backed by a comforting 5 years warranty.

The Neutron GTX Series is without a doubt one of the best SSD series we have had the pleasure of taking a look at thus far. Sequential read and write performance is superior to that of any SandForce driven drive and the price is also very attractive. Neutron GTX comes with 5 years peace of mind warranty touting it as a great all round product. Due to these reasons the Neutron GTX 240GB deserves nothing less than our Gold award for excellence.

Pros
+ Good build quality
+ Excellent performance (especially sequential)
+ Lightweight – ideal for notebooks
+ Affordable
+ 5 years warranty

Cons
– There are none!


Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.

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