Storage is one of the most important components of any device, but it’s especially important for gaming. It not only allows you to have all of your games in one place, but it also, in part, dictates how quickly games can load. Even if you have the best processor and the best GPU, a 7,200 RPM hard drive will make apps and games load slowly. That’s why if you’re adding extra storage to a handheld gaming console like the Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally, you’ll not only need extra storage but fast speeds.
The Corsair MP600 Mini is an M.2 2230 NVMe SSD, meaning that it’s pretty specialized. It’s minuscule, and it’ll fit in basically any M.2 slot, but it needs the proper support underneath to ensure that it maintains a stable connection with the connected device. We put it to the test to see if it’s worth your money, and spoiler alert: It absolutely is. It’s not even really expensive for what you get, either, making it one of the best M.2 2230 SSDs out there.
Corsair MP600 Mini
Great SSD upgrade
$100 $110 Save $10
The Corsair MP600 is a great SSD that you can put in the Asus ROG Ally or a Steam Deck, and it packs 1TB of storage that you can fill up with as many games as you’d like.
- Storage capacity
- 1TB
- Hardware Interface
- PCIe Gen 4 x4
- Brand
- Corsair
- Transfer rate
- 4800MB/s Read/Write
- Price
- $110
Pros
- Super fast storage
- Easy to use
- Fits a lot of devices
Cons
- Not the best PCIe Gen 4 SSD
Corsair MP600 Mini: Pricing and availability
The Corsair MP600 Mini comes just with a 1TB capacity size, but that’s plenty of space, and it’s more than what you’ll get with even the highest-tier Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally. What’s more, it costs $110 MSRP, which is a reasonable price for an upgrade. It’s actually cheaper to buy the 64GB model of the Steam Deck and upgrade it yourself with the Corsair MP600 Mini instead of buying the 512GB model officially.
This particular SSD is available in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, making it easily available pretty much everywhere.
Performance
As good as you can expect
The Corsair MP600 Mini is an extremely fast SSD on paper, and that’s thanks to its PCIe Gen 4 compatibility. It has four data transfer lanes for a theoretical bandwidth limit of 8GB/s. In other words, the closer we get to this value, the better. Having said that, this particular SSD is only rated for 4.8GB/s both read and write, but that’s still plenty fast for most use cases.
Where the MP600 Mini really shines is as an SD card replacement for a device like the Steam Deck or ROG Ally. It won’t fit in most conventional gaming computers since most M.2 slots on computers won’t have a stand-off to screw in an M.2 2230 SSD, but that’s not what it’s designed for. You’re better off picking up something like the Samsung 990 Pro if that’s your prerogative.
Firstly, the image below shows the results of a benchmark in CrystalDiskMark 8, testing both sequential and random performance. We tested it with a minimal amount of storage used, as the more flash storage fills up, the slower it gets.
We ran the same test with ATTO Disk Benchmark too.
We then ran the same tests with a 92% filled drive, as performance degradation kicks in when the drive is filled at about 70% and above. The reason read speeds slow down is that as the drive fills, partially-filled pages of data need to be restructured since you can’t write data to a partially-filled page. Multiple pages compose a block. While read speeds didn’t see any significant impact, write speeds really tanked.
What’s good about the above tests is that even with a full drive, you’ll be able to play your games at pretty decent speeds thanks to the high read speeds. For anything that requires writing back to the disk, you may notice a performance hit, but for most people, this is more than good enough.
The erratic read/write values shown in ATTO Disk Benchmark were consistent across multiple runs, though they weren’t consistent at what I/O size they were faster or slower in. We test at multiple I/O sizes to represent different workloads, as smaller I/O sizes would typically be more representative of random reads. Larger I/O sizes will also be used where there is more data and expected to reside close together on the storage.
What this all means is that you’ll get some pretty good performance out of this SSD, and games will likely run noticeably quicker than if they were to run off of the SD card. However, in comparison to the ROG Ally’s previous SSD, there won’t be much of a noticeable change. You’re not upgrading the SSD for speed improvements here; it’s purely for the extra storage that it gives you.
Despite that, the reason we run these tests is to ensure that it’s not a detrimental upgrade. If the storage speed is at least on par with what you get out of the box, then it’s all about the storage improvements from there, and that’s exactly what you get.
Finally, It’s important to point out that we had a hard time getting it to consistently hit 4.8GB/s write speeds when running CrystalDiskMark despite that being advertised, but the read speeds are very much bang on. Furthermore, these write speeds were nearly achieved in ATTO Disk Benchmark.
Should you buy Corsair MP600 Mini?
You should buy the Corsair MP600 Mini if:
- You’re looking to upgrade your Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally’s storage
- You want fast, good-quality storage
- You have a large game library
You shouldn’t buy the Corsair MP600 Mini if:
- You’re upgrading the storage of a normal PC: get one of the best M.2 SSDs for that
- You don’t need more than 512GB of storage
The Corsair MP600 Mini is a perfectly fine SSD, and as essentially a first-generation product, it’s a great complement to an Asus ROG Ally or a Steam Deck. Games nowadays are big, and with the caliber of games that these devices can play, you’re looking at using up nearly 20% of your total storage out of the box with just one game.
Of course, there are other devices that this SSD can go in, and one such one would be the Microsoft Surface Pro 9, which also conveniently needs an M.2 2230 SSD. However, in 90% of cases, this SSD is much smaller than what most devices are built to accept as an SSD size. For 1TB of storage in a much more specialized form factor, a $110 MSRP is excellent, and at the time of writing, it’s actually $10 off.
Personally, what I would do is purchase the 64GB edition of Valve’s Steam Deck and then buy this SSD. It involves some manual work, but you’ll save a lot of money upgrading the storage yourself, though you miss out on some of the other premium offerings given. As for the ROG Ally, well, there is only one storage variant available. Still, it’s arguably one of the best upgrades you can make, and it’s very much worth it if you find yourself with a large games library.
Corsair MP600 Mini
$100 $110 Save $10
The Corsair MP600 is a great SSD that you can put in the Asus ROG Ally or a Steam Deck, and it packs 1TB of storage that you can fill up with as many games as you’d like.