The Corsair Force Series MP510 may appear at first glance to be an incremental update to the earlier MP500, but under the sticker it's an entirely new and far better drive. The MP500 was Corsair's take on the Phison E7 first-generation NVMe SSD controller paired with planar MLC NAND. The MP510 adopts the new Phison E12 controller and Toshiba's 64-layer 3D TLC NAND. The result is a drive that aims for the high end and actually makes it this time.

Earlier this year, we previewed the Phison E12 controller and its M.2 SSD reference design. The Corsair Force MP510 is based on that same hardware platform and features the same firmware version number, so not much should have changed except for the application of a Corsair logo and price tag. The Phison E12 is the high-end controller from their second generation of NVMe controllers, with the E8 as the entry-level NVMe controller with fewer PCIe lanes and NAND channels. Phison has close ties to Toshiba, and most Phison drives use Toshiba's NAND flash. Toshiba's transition to 3D NAND was relatively late and that stuck many Phison SSD vendors with uncompetitive SSDs last year, including most drives with the E7 controller. Toshiba's 64-layer 3D TLC has reversed that situation and is giving Phison SSD vendors access to cutting-edge flash that is fast, cheap, and power efficient. Phison's E12 controller allows drives to make the most of that flash.

Corsair Force Series MP510 Specifications
Capacity 240 GB 480 GB 960 GB 1920 GB
Form Factor double-sided M.2 2280, PCIe 3 x4
Controller Phison PS5012-E12
NAND Flash Toshiba BiCS3 256Gb 64-layer 3D TLC
Sequential Read 3100 MB/s 3480 MB/s 3480 MB/s 3480 MB/s
Sequential Write 1050 MB/s 2000 MB/s 3000 MB/s 2700 MB/s
Random Read 180k IOPS 360k IOPS 610k IOPS 485k IOPS
Random Write 240k IOPS 440k IOPS 570k IOPS 530k IOPS
Rated
Power
Read 6.1 W 6.7 W 6.9 W 7.1 W
Write 3.5 W 4.8 W 5.6 W 6.2 W
Idle 30 mW
Warranty 5 years
Write Endurance 400 TB
0.9 DWPD
800 TB
0.9 DWPD
1700 TB
1.0 DWPD
3120 TB
0.9 DWPD
MSRP $65.99
(27¢/GB)
$124.99
(26¢/GB)
$235.99
(25¢/GB)
 

The Corsair Force MP510 is available in capacities from 240GB to 960GB, with a 1920GB model on the way. That largest model has slightly reduced performance specifications from the 960GB that we have tested, and the smallest 240GB model has significantly constrained performance, with only the sequential read speeds still in high-end NVMe territory.

All capacities have a rated write endurance of around 0.9-1.0 drive writes per day and a five year warranty period, which are standard for high-end consumer SSDs. Maximum power draw ranges from 6.1-7.1W depending on capacity, so the drive will get warm but thermal throttling shouldn't be a problem outside of synthetic benchmarks.

The Corsair Force MP510 faces very direct competition from other Phison E12 SSDs such as the MyDigitalSSD BPX Pro, which the MP510 is surprisingly undercutting on price at the moment. Other competitors include:

  • the Samsung 970 EVO and Western Digital WD Black, flagship TLC SSDs from major brands that are only a little bit more expensive than the MP510
  • The HP EX920, ADATA SX8200 and other similar drives based on the Silicon Motion SM2262 controller, some of which are currently cheaper than the MP510

Also included in this review are several entry-level NVMe drives, our results from testing an engineering sample of the upcoming Silicon Motion SM2262EN controller, and the Toshiba XG6 OEM SSD that will hopefully get a retail version soon.

AnandTech 2018 Consumer SSD Testbed
CPU Intel Xeon E3 1240 v5
Motherboard ASRock Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance Gaming/OC
Chipset Intel C232
Memory 4x 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR4-2400 CL15
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 5450, 1920x1200@60Hz
Software Windows 10 x64, version 1709
Linux kernel version 4.14, fio version 3.6
Spectre/Meltdown microcode and OS patches current as of May 2018
AnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
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  • gunnys - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link

    I've been looking to upgrade the drive in my laptop for a while now, and will end up going with this over the 970 Evo. IMO, Samsung needs more serious competitors.

    It also helps that my experience with Corsair SSDs was back in the days of the Neutron GTX. It was a great drive back in the day.
  • fadsarmy - Thursday, September 15, 2022 - link

    My 240GB MP510 has 15TB out of 400TB written so that leaves 96.25% health remaining. Corsair toolbox and Crystal Disk Info both report 87% health remaining. This equates to about 110TB endurance, way off the 400TB claimed by Corsair. Is there any logical explanation for this?

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