A PCIe Gen4 x4 controller delivers up to 5,000MB/sec sequential read and 4,400MB/sec sequential write speeds, for outstanding read, write, and response times.
High-Speed Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe 1.4 M.2 Interface: Using PCIe Gen4 technology for maximum bandwidth, the MP600 CORE XT delivers great storage performance.
High-Density 3D QLC NAND: Provides the ideal combination of performance and value.
This collaborative space allows users to contribute additional information, tips, and insights to enhance the original deal post. Feel free to share your knowledge and help fellow shoppers make informed decisions.
A PCIe Gen4 x4 controller delivers up to 5,000MB/sec sequential read and 4,400MB/sec sequential write speeds, for outstanding read, write, and response times.
High-Speed Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe 1.4 M.2 Interface: Using PCIe Gen4 technology for maximum bandwidth, the MP600 CORE XT delivers great storage performance.
High-Density 3D QLC NAND: Provides the ideal combination of performance and value.
I wouldn't even consider the 2tb for $80, since there are drives as good or better for cheaper and drives only slightly more expensive with much better performance. On the other hand, since 4tb tends to command a hefty premium, the 4tb for $160 isn't too bad of a deal, though it isn't incredible either. This is a dram-less 176-Layer Micron QLC pcie gen 4 drive using the Phison E21T controller. This means performance is mediocre at best, and I would not recommend using it as a boot drive. The qlc nand flash also has significantly less endurance in terms of TBW compared to tlc (or even compared to the higher quality qlc flash used by intel/solidigm), so I would not use this drive if your use case is write heavy or demands a high degree of reliability. That being said, for cheap mass storage on a gen 4 ssd, this is not a terrible price. You can definitely get a better deal if you wait though.
Edit: Since there have been multiple people asking about what to use as a boot drive, I've gone into a fair amount of detail in this post further in this thread: https://slickdeals.net/f/16930396-2tb-corsair-mp600-core-xt-pcie-4-0-gen4-x4-nvme-m-2-solid-state-drive-80-more-free-s-h?p=165900142#post165900142
Unfortunately, higher end 4tb ssds tend to command a significant price premium compared to the 2tb versions commonly available. For a boot drive I recommend purchasing a drive with dram, tlc nand flash memory, and preferably a modern gen 4 controller with good 4k random read and write performance. I'll provide a brief explanation of these three qualities and why they're valuable for a boot drive; if you're not interested in that my actual product recommendations will be at the bottom of this post.
Dram (dynamic-random access memory) is essentially an additional flash memory chip in the ssd that functions similarly to the ram in your computer. Dram is able to store the data map tables instead of using the nand flash of the ssd, which allows for improved performance across the board, particularly random read and write performance for small files. This is far more meaningful to operating system performance compared to the heavily advertised peak sequential speeds of a ssd which are meaningless past a certain threshold in the vast majority of standard use. Additionally, by not requiring the data map tables to be stored and accessed from the nand flash, dram significantly reduces the wear on the ssd from standard use therefore increasing longevity and reliability. While hmb (host memory buffer) and to some extent slc/pslc caching can mitigate the downsides of using a dramless drive, unless the price difference is absolutely absurd I always recommend using a drive with dram for your boot drive which your operating system runs on.
Moving on to the type of nand flash used, tlc in general is simply a superior type of memory compared to qlc for most applications, with the primary downside being increased cost. Qlc memory tends to be slower (though higher density qlc used in higher capacity drives can close the gap somewhat) and has significantly worse endurance, especially in terms of writes. You will typically find qlc used in budget or value tier drives, and qlc drives with dram are significantly less common. Qlc drives due to their low cost tend to excel as cheap mass storage for those that don't wish to use hard drives.
The ssd controller is basically an embedded microcontroller functioning as the brains of the ssd, managing all the different functions. A high quality controller will allow for lower latency, faster performance, and better reliability. 4k random read and write performance (essentially the ability to quickly access, read, and write small files), which is the most important metric for operating system performance, is heavily affected by the controller. Most smaller ssd manufacturers will license a controller from a company such as phison, but some larger manufacturers (such as samsung, western digital, etc.) use their own in house controllers. When considering a drive for use as a boot drive it is best to pay attention to the random 4k random read and write performance (typically displayed in iops). Peak sequential read/write speed can be disregarded as long as it's over 5000 and your use case does not require constant copying of enormous (dozens of gigabytes) files.
Getting back to actual product recommendations, there unfortunately aren't any good value 4tb drives that are well suited for being boot drives (unless you count that one price mistake for the 4tb wd sn850x). The best options I know of are: the 4tb wd sn850x which occasionally goes on sale for $230, the 4tb teamgroup T-Force cardea a440 pro which is currently on sale for $220 on amazon, and the 4tb acer predator gm7000 which occasionally goes on sale for $200 (this uses the IG5236 controller which has been known to have issues, though firmware updates have supposedly fixed it).
If you're willing to use a 2tb drive as your boot drive rather than a 4tb drive there are tons of good options that provide a far better value. Some standouts include: the 2tb wd sn850x which has dropped as low as $90 and is regularly on sale for $100 with good additional cashback, the 2tb solidigm p44 pro (and the hynix platinum p41 which is the extremely similar previous version of this drive) which occasionally go on sale for $100, and the 2tb samsung 980 pro which is slightly slower but goes on sale for $90 or $100 with a built in heatsink and can rarely be found at a more substantial discount since it's been replaced by the 990 pro.
Ssd prices have been dropping for quite a while, and even though prices seem to have plateaued for now I'd expect there to be some good sales around black-friday/cyber-monday.
60 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
I wouldn't even consider the 2tb for $80, since there are drives as good or better for cheaper and drives only slightly more expensive with much better performance. On the other hand, since 4tb tends to command a hefty premium, the 4tb for $160 isn't too bad of a deal, though it isn't incredible either. This is a dram-less 176-Layer Micron QLC pcie gen 4 drive using the Phison E21T controller. This means performance is mediocre at best, and I would not recommend using it as a boot drive. The qlc nand flash also has significantly less endurance in terms of TBW compared to tlc (or even compared to the higher quality qlc flash used by intel/solidigm), so I would not use this drive if your use case is write heavy or demands a high degree of reliability. That being said, for cheap mass storage on a gen 4 ssd, this is not a terrible price. You can definitely get a better deal if you wait though.
What would you suggest for an unraid based Plex server? Don't think it's crazy write heavy, but would be pulling metadata somewhat regularly for TV shows/movies. I've been reading random articles and someone was suggesting a 2 TB and 4 TB drive. It's been over a decade since I've built a new system, so trying to catch up on what is optimal for these kinds of things again.
What would you suggest for an unraid based Plex server? Don't think it's crazy write heavy, but would be pulling metadata somewhat regularly for TV shows/movies. I've been reading random articles and someone was suggesting a 2 TB and 4 TB drive. It's been over a decade since I've built a new system, so trying to catch up on what is optimal for these kinds of things again.
Unraid can't use ssd outside of cache and unassigned devices. You don't need a huge cache drive for a Plex based unraid setup (512gb or 1tb would do)
I wouldn't even consider the 2tb for $80, since there are drives as good or better for cheaper and drives only slightly more expensive with much better performance. On the other hand, since 4tb tends to command a hefty premium, the 4tb for $160 isn't too bad of a deal, though it isn't incredible either. This is a dram-less 176-Layer Micron QLC pcie gen 4 drive using the Phison E21T controller. This means performance is mediocre at best, and I would not recommend using it as a boot drive. The qlc nand flash also has significantly less endurance in terms of TBW compared to tlc (or even compared to the higher quality qlc flash used by intel/solidigm), so I would not use this drive if your use case is write heavy or demands a high degree of reliability. That being said, for cheap mass storage on a gen 4 ssd, this is not a terrible price. You can definitely get a better deal if you wait though.
How about using it as a storage drive to install steam games?
I wouldn't even consider the 2tb for $80, since there are drives as good or better for cheaper and drives only slightly more expensive with much better performance. On the other hand, since 4tb tends to command a hefty premium, the 4tb for $160 isn't too bad of a deal, though it isn't incredible either. This is a dram-less 176-Layer Micron QLC pcie gen 4 drive using the Phison E21T controller. This means performance is mediocre at best, and I would not recommend using it as a boot drive. The qlc nand flash also has significantly less endurance in terms of TBW compared to tlc (or even compared to the higher quality qlc flash used by intel/solidigm), so I would not use this drive if your use case is write heavy or demands a high degree of reliability. That being said, for cheap mass storage on a gen 4 ssd, this is not a terrible price. You can definitely get a better deal if you wait though.
I'm looking for a good 4TB NVME SSD. Can you recommend a few alternatives that are decently priced and have the features you'd recommend for a boot drive.
I wouldn't even consider the 2tb for $80, since there are drives as good or better for cheaper and drives only slightly more expensive with much better performance. On the other hand, since 4tb tends to command a hefty premium, the 4tb for $160 isn't too bad of a deal, though it isn't incredible either. This is a dram-less 176-Layer Micron QLC pcie gen 4 drive using the Phison E21T controller. This means performance is mediocre at best, and I would not recommend using it as a boot drive. The qlc nand flash also has significantly less endurance in terms of TBW compared to tlc (or even compared to the higher quality qlc flash used by intel/solidigm), so I would not use this drive if your use case is write heavy or demands a high degree of reliability. That being said, for cheap mass storage on a gen 4 ssd, this is not a terrible price. You can definitely get a better deal if you wait though.
What would you consider instead of this one for 4tb as a boot drive and whatnot? I'm actually in the market for this, but I can wait till Black Friday. I also wanna stay near $200ish as my limit.
How about using it as a storage drive to install steam games?
Most any SSD would be fine for game storage drive. This might change if you developers start implementing DirectStorage as a minimum requirement, which this MP600 CORE XT drive is compatible with.
1
Like
Helpful
Funny
Not helpful
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Any guesses on what the "THIS IS THE DEAL" drive will be? Definitely looking for a 4 tb nvme for my laptop which I do a lot of photoshop / davinci / premier on, so high read/write endurance would be appreciable.
I remember when anything beyond a 7200rpm was insanely good, here we are in 2023 and nvme drives are "mediocre at best". Silly humans will never be happy 😁
This drive doesn't exist in a vacuum. If there are better drives why not mention them?
And performance tanks when drives like this start filling up. If you think you are going to get gen 4 speeds when this thing is 85% full I have bad news for you.
How about using it as a storage drive to install steam games?
This drive should be perfectly viable as a game drive, though if you don't actually need 4tb of space I recommend getting a 2tb drive instead since they're far cheaper per tb. Direct storage isn't yet supported in a meaningful way by even current gen games, so while this may change in the future, at the current moment a faster gen4 ssd will only save you a couple of seconds on loading screens as the best case scenario. If you're fine with a 2tb drive I highly recommend the 2tb solidigm p41 plus which is on sale for $63 and should have only slightly worse performance compared to this drive while having better endurance (per tb) and being more reliable.
250 TBW which means its life expectancy is only 125 complete rewrites of the drive. Thats pretty low especially when compared to a TLC drive which can have more than 10x the lifespan.
250 TBW is sufficient for most people but I am constantly filling and deleting stuff my drive. I would use up 250 TBW in a few years.
Leave a Comment
Top Comments
Edit: Since there have been multiple people asking about what to use as a boot drive, I've gone into a fair amount of detail in this post further in this thread:
https://slickdeals.net/f/16930396-2tb-corsair-mp600-core-xt-pcie-4-0-gen4-x4-nvme-m-2-solid-state-drive-80-more-free-s-h?p=165900142#p
Dram (dynamic-random access memory) is essentially an additional flash memory chip in the ssd that functions similarly to the ram in your computer. Dram is able to store the data map tables instead of using the nand flash of the ssd, which allows for improved performance across the board, particularly random read and write performance for small files. This is far more meaningful to operating system performance compared to the heavily advertised peak sequential speeds of a ssd which are meaningless past a certain threshold in the vast majority of standard use. Additionally, by not requiring the data map tables to be stored and accessed from the nand flash, dram significantly reduces the wear on the ssd from standard use therefore increasing longevity and reliability. While hmb (host memory buffer) and to some extent slc/pslc caching can mitigate the downsides of using a dramless drive, unless the price difference is absolutely absurd I always recommend using a drive with dram for your boot drive which your operating system runs on.
Moving on to the type of nand flash used, tlc in general is simply a superior type of memory compared to qlc for most applications, with the primary downside being increased cost. Qlc memory tends to be slower (though higher density qlc used in higher capacity drives can close the gap somewhat) and has significantly worse endurance, especially in terms of writes. You will typically find qlc used in budget or value tier drives, and qlc drives with dram are significantly less common. Qlc drives due to their low cost tend to excel as cheap mass storage for those that don't wish to use hard drives.
The ssd controller is basically an embedded microcontroller functioning as the brains of the ssd, managing all the different functions. A high quality controller will allow for lower latency, faster performance, and better reliability. 4k random read and write performance (essentially the ability to quickly access, read, and write small files), which is the most important metric for operating system performance, is heavily affected by the controller. Most smaller ssd manufacturers will license a controller from a company such as phison, but some larger manufacturers (such as samsung, western digital, etc.) use their own in house controllers. When considering a drive for use as a boot drive it is best to pay attention to the random 4k random read and write performance (typically displayed in iops). Peak sequential read/write speed can be disregarded as long as it's over 5000 and your use case does not require constant copying of enormous (dozens of gigabytes) files.
Getting back to actual product recommendations, there unfortunately aren't any good value 4tb drives that are well suited for being boot drives (unless you count that one price mistake for the 4tb wd sn850x). The best options I know of are: the 4tb wd sn850x which occasionally goes on sale for $230, the 4tb teamgroup T-Force cardea a440 pro which is currently on sale for $220 on amazon, and the 4tb acer predator gm7000 which occasionally goes on sale for $200 (this uses the IG5236 controller which has been known to have issues, though firmware updates have supposedly fixed it).
If you're willing to use a 2tb drive as your boot drive rather than a 4tb drive there are tons of good options that provide a far better value. Some standouts include: the 2tb wd sn850x which has dropped as low as $90 and is regularly on sale for $100 with good additional cashback, the 2tb solidigm p44 pro (and the hynix platinum p41 which is the extremely similar previous version of this drive) which occasionally go on sale for $100, and the 2tb samsung 980 pro which is slightly slower but goes on sale for $90 or $100 with a built in heatsink and can rarely be found at a more substantial discount since it's been replaced by the 990 pro.
Ssd prices have been dropping for quite a while, and even though prices seem to have plateaued for now I'd expect there to be some good sales around black-friday/cyber-monday.
60 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
And performance tanks when drives like this start filling up. If you think you are going to get gen 4 speeds when this thing is 85% full I have bad news for you.
But the question of it being "worth the price" depends a lot on your specific use case and budget.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
250 TBW is sufficient for most people but I am constantly filling and deleting stuff my drive. I would use up 250 TBW in a few years.
Leave a Comment