First Look: Corsair Nova V128

Following the growing product line of storage products, Corsair has introduced the Nova V128 and V64 SSDs. Some visitors may recall that Benchmark Reviews bestowed our Editor's Choice Award to the Corsair X256 SSD not long ago, which was the fastest consumer Solid State Drive available at the time with specified speeds of 240/170 MB/s read and write. Six months later, Corsair is already out-performing their eXtreme-series with a value-series SSD: Nova.

The Corsair CSSD-V128GB2-BRKT kit offers a 3.5-2.5" adapter tray inside the package, in addition to the SSD. The Corsair Nova V128 shows off a simple black painted finish on the metal casing that gives the drive a total weight of 80g.

Best suited for notebook and desktop computer installations, the 128GB Corsair Nova V128 SSD could also be utilized for mission-critical backups or high-abuse data systems. The Corsair Nova Solid State Drive series has been designed with a focus on high-performance data transfer speeds and data protection at an affordable price. Although the Corsair Nova V128 model does not offer an integrated USB Mini-B port, there are several new 2.5" SATA enclosures that utilize SuperSpeed USB-3.0 standard for high-performance portable file transfers.

Standard 2.5" drive bay mounting points are pre-drilled and threaded into the Corsair Nova SSD, which allows for quick upgrade or addition into any existing notebook or desktop system. The mounting positions matched up to the drive bracket on my notebook computer, and after only a few minutes of drive cloning I was quickly loading the Windows-7 O/S without a hitch.

Unlike most Hard Disk Drive (HDD) storage products, SSDs are nearly impervious to impact damage and do not require (or benefit from) any kind of special vibration dampening or shock-proof enclosures. Corsair utilizes a familiar two-piece metal enclosure for their Nova models, which reveals the internal components after removing four small counter-sunk Phillips-head screws located at the bottom of this SSD. The Corsair Nova V128 has two warranty-void stickers covering the screws, and removing the enclosure cover will remove consumer protection with it. Benchmark Reviews will reveal all of the internal components on our next section anyway, so just be patient and save your warranty.

Thanks to the Indilinx-ECO SSD controller architecture (detailed in the next section), the Corsair Nova V128 Solid State Drive suggests transfer speeds around 270/195 MBps read/write for high-performance enthusiasts. Now that you're acquainted with the basic exterior features for the Corsair Nova-series SSD, it's time to peek inside the metal enclosure and inspect the internal components...

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