Drive and Controller Specifications
The stats
Corsair lists the specs of this device at maximum 4800MB/s Sequential Read and Write. Here are the full specs for the drive:
Note that these are theoretical maximums, for an empty drive that is not the current system drive.
The new generation Phison controller
The controller used on this new generation of drives, including the Corsair MP600 Mini and Sabrent Rocket 2230, is the recently released Phison E21T controller – a smaller (and thereby cheaper to produce) “entry-level PCIe4” DRAM-less controller (using instead Host Memory Buffer technology) announced early in 2021. The maximum performance of the controller itself is quoted at 4800MB/s read/write, so any drive that can achieve this is maxing out the spec fully. Well-informed readers will notice this is below the maximum ~7000MB/s achievable on the PCIe4.0x4 interface (speeds that are commonly seen using the full-fat, full-size Phison E18T controller in the highest performance 2280’s) but on a par with the previous E16T controllers that appeared mid-Gen3.
Here are the full specs:
At a hardware level, the controller includes support for the usual full raft of hardware encryption protocols (for use with BitLocker, for example) and as with all of Phison’s modern offerings is Direct-Storage compatible and includes thermal monitoring. The controller supports up to 4GB of TLC or QLC NAND. In combination with highest densities already available this means we should see up to 2TB single-sides variants on the market eventually. This is important, as some devices (such as the SteamDeck, for example) support only single-sided M.2 drives.
This controller finally made its way first into an Inland drive last December, and the Sabrent Rocket 2230 has been available since late January.
The warranty
Apart from these technical specifications, the drive is covered by a 5 year warranty and is rated for 600TBW. This relatively strong guarantee mirrors the Sabrent 2230 or, for example, a 2280 Samsung 980 Pro. It’s more than double the 250TBW quoted for the upcoming 1TB TeamGroup MP44S drive.
