Performance: 36 out of 40
As with the P310 previously reviewed, we must point out that this is a relative performance rating. Not an ‘overall’… as this is a M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 class drive. With that said the combination of an actually decent controller with extremely good NAND is a winning one. Quite honestly the only thing holding the Corsair MP600 Mini 2024 edition back from greatness is its small pSLC cache buffer size. If this model had even just used a floating buffer of %60 percent of free capacity instead of the P310’s 80 percent it would be phenomenal instead of merely being excellent. As it stands there is room for improvement on the firmware side of things.
Technological Innovation: 18 out of 20
Corsair really love to buck the trends and are quickly becoming one of the bellwethers of the SSD industry. Which is made all the more impressive considering they do not have a NAND manufacture backstopping them! Bluntly stated Corsair made an extremely wise decision in not going the QLC NAND route… nor the Micron or SK Hynix TLC NAND route. Instead going for ol reliable Toshiba and their excellent gen 6 TLC NAND. Hopefully when they do their next MP600 Mini upgrade… they will opt for BiCS 8 as that would have been perfection. That and… stop ‘innovating’ by recycling models names.
Build Quality & Warranty: 17 out of 20
Arguably the best controller that can fit inside the 30mm footprint? Check. Arguably some of the best NAND on the market? Double check! Arguably one of the few that can match Micron in the warranty ease of RMA process? Triple check! The only reason we are dinging anything from the MP600 Mini 2024 is the name is sub-optimal… and the firmware needs to be switched to a floating buffer. Beyond that, there is nothing to nitpick about here. Color us impressed. Not surprised… but nevertheless impressed.
Value: 18 out of 20
Yes, these new breed of M.2 2230 drives are going to set you back 10 to 11 cents per GB of capacity. Yes, that is pushing the boundaries of sanity for mainstream PCIe 4.0 drives. Yes. The Corsair MP600 Mini 2024 is about ten freedom bucks more than P310. To us a mere ten bucks for not only TLC instead of QLC NAND, but also excellent Toggle Mode NAND is not just a “good deal” but a great one. This legitimately is one of the few 2230s that can hang with last gen (PCIe 4) 2280 models in (certain portions of) the levels of performance it offers. So much so that if we had one in our spare parts bin, or found it on sale, we would have zero issues with using it as a ‘D’ or ‘games’ drive in a custom build. It is just that good an all rounder drive. Which in turn boosts its overall value upwards like a rocket.
Final Score: 89 out of 100
With the exception of the pSLC write buffer size, the Corsair MP600 Mini 2024 edition is pretty much everything one could want in a secondary ‘D’ drive model. The very fact that that this is not a model meant for mainstream devices and rather was/is intended solely for ultra-portable devices… well… that just proves beyond any shadow of a doubt how good Corsair are at picking parts for their SSD drives. Now if they only were as good at picking names for said drives we would be truly happy with the MP600 Mini 2TB 2204 Edition.
