Mini SSD Roundup (M.2 2230) - Best SSDs for Steam Deck, ROG Ally & Mini PCs

today I'm going to look at these three teeny tiny m.2 nvme ssds the Corsair mp600 mini that just launched the sabrant rocket and the dogfish that I've never really heard about before but it seems to sell a lot on Amazon and it has pretty good reviews even though I would say their marketing is a bit questionable anyway these 2230 drives are obviously even smaller than your typical m.2 nvme drives and they are made for devices like the steam deck or certain laptops or mini PCS now 2230 basically means that they are 22 millimeters wide and 30 millimeters long while your typical 2280 drive would obviously be 80 millimeters long so let's see how these drives compare to each other and which one is the best one to get let's begin the Corsair mp600 mini is a Gen 4 nvme SSD that just launched a few days ago and this is the very first compact SSD Corsair ever made given the form factor there is not much any manufacturer can do to make it really stand out in terms of parts or visuals but at least they kind of went for well-known and well-tested components so it comes with a Faison E21 controller and micron's 176 layer TLC nand there is no dram cache present but I think that goes for every other 2230 SSD on the market now Corsair is only launching this in a one terabyte capacity with no information on anything smaller or anything larger for the time being the sabrant rocket 2230 is a Gen 4 nvme SSD that has been out for a while now and I have the one terabyte version here but you can also get a 512 or 256 gigabyte model as well now technically it uses the exact same components as the Corsair so it has a Faison E21 controller and Micron nand they also share the exact same five year long warranty or 600 terabytes written warranty and then whichever expires first the dogfish is a gen 3 nvme SSD and it is definitely the odd one out they specify very little on their website and on Amazon and the specs they do share don't really make a lot of sense so the mention is SATA interface with 600 megabytes per second read speed but they kind of list higher nvme speeds elsewhere now some marketing images even have the two conflicting numbers in the exact same picture if you look hard enough you will see that they offer a three year long warranty but that's pretty much it well I always say that sequential read and write performance is not that relevant for that real world use we can at least make sure we're not actually dealing with SATA drives that are marketed as nvme drives now both the sabrant and the Corsair managed to do about 5000 megabytes per second of write performance and around 6 700 megabytes per second read performance and I would say they're basically identical which kind of makes sense is they use the same components Dogfish managed 1600 megabytes per second right and 1900 megabytes per second read which is under some of the numbers that they claim in their marketing but it is also far below the limits of a gen 3 spec which would be around 3 500 megabytes per second so yeah it is better than SATA but it's still far from its competitors keep in mind that if you're using a gen 3 device like a steam deck for example both Corsair and sabrant will Top out around 3 500 megabytes per second and since these are the drives that most people will get for their steam deck let's look at some more relevant gaming benchmarks like 3dmark storage for example and this is a bundle of tests that include a lot of gaming related tasks like installing games recording games saving games loading games as well as moving game folders around and here the Corsair and the Sebring drives yet again perform almost identical with Dogfish far behind to put these numbers in perspective that puts the courser and sabrin just behind a decent regular sized nvme ssds like The crucial P5 plus and the dogfish a bit behind a real budget ssds like the Kingston nv2 if you look at how fast different games load it is the same story so Corsair and sabrant are very close together with the dogfish being pretty far behind and if I just look at the results that I personally find the most important for gaming so loading times plus installation and update times and then I compare them to the fastest drive I tested so far which is the sn850x it all looks very similar yet again none of them come close to the fastest regular m.2 SSD but for a drive that is about a third of its size I think Corsair and sabrant do a pretty good job at keeping up the PC Mark 10 quick Benchmark is a collection of different tests that simulate all those little things we do with our PCS every single day things like working with documents opening photos and so on and this is a very useful Benchmark for anyone that will use their laptop for these simple little tasks on a daily basis and here here the sabrant and Corsair score exactly the same result of 349 megabytes per second average with the dogfish landing at 206 megabytes per second the full PC Mark 10 Suite is a more intense test and it replicates a more serious and more consistent use of your system and this is a benchmark to look at if you need to run some applications that can be heavier on the SSD like editing videos for example that's not something you would do on a steam deck but it will be more relevant if you're considering one of these drives for a laptop or a Mini PC and it's getting a little bit repetitive at this point but the Corsair and sabrin score basically the same result once again but as the benchmarks get harder the dogfish falls behind even further and if you look at Thermals you would kind of expect the faster drives to run a bit warmer but here it's actually the other way around on an Open Bench without a heatsink or any airflow so both the Corsair and the sabrant averaged 58 degrees while gaming and never went above 60 degrees the dogfish however averaged at 60 degrees and peaked at 68 degrees so the controller used by Corsair and sabrant is just a lot more efficient realistically this means that you shouldn't expect any of them to actually throttle in a steam deck which is closed but doesn't stress the SSD as much as some of the tougher tests do but for a higher end laptop and heavier use like editing for example I would definitely get the one that runs cooler so overall the coarser and the sabrin are well exactly the same SSD with a different sticker on it sometimes ssds have the same components but can perform a bit different due to Firmware differences but in this case the performance is completely identical so it will only come down to price in the US the one terabyte say brand is currently selling for 160 dollars while the Corsair comes in at 110 dollars which makes the mp600 Mini the obvious choice between the two the dogfish might have made some sense if it was like super cheap but at 144 dollars right now there is no way you should ever buy that over the Corsair or the sabrant in the EU the courser costs 120 euros and the sabrant is 180 Euros making the choice between the two again very obvious but the dogfish is even more expensive and you definitely should never spend 190 Euros to get one of those as always it is very important to remember that prices do change all the time and that the mp600 mini just launched uh sabrant didn't really have that much competition until now so there was no reason to lower the price but now they do have competition and I kind of do expect they will adjust their price soon enough because they have no other choice since Corsair mini is basically the same as Z but cheaper so keep an eye on the price and if you need to buy one just pick whichever is cheaper at that point as for the dogfish I would say it is pretty disappointing both in terms of performance the lack of any clear specs and its price if you ever find it on a great deal it can still make a bit of sense but unless the prices drop to under half of what they are now I would just simply avoid it that is all I have for today I hope this video was helpful enough but before I go let's hear it from our sponsors this video is brought to you by seasonic and their brand new vertex power supplies these fully modular power supplies are extremely efficient and very quiet due to their fan design and their hybrid fan mode that stops the fans completely under 40 load they come with a variety of connections for any kind of systems you have in mind including the new 12 volt high power cable for the latest RTX graphics cards and as a little bonus you get a cozy 10 year long warranty check them out using the links in the description below thank you all for watching if you want to see more videos like this this one do consider clicking that subscribe button this way you won't miss any of my future uploads bye guys and I will see you all in the next one hopefully bye [Music]

Channel: Techtesters

Views: 38,335

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Id: qeK2F0zmSRo

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023