Hardware Canucks posted a review of the Corsair Accelerator 30GB SSD Cache Drive

A short time ago we took a long hard look at the Corsair Accelerator 60GB drive and walked away craving even more. Its ability to increase the overall responsiveness of an entire system was impressive, performance was improved without sacrificing capacity and it didn’t cost a veritable fortune. However, there was one major issue: the overall value was lacking when compared to similar solutions offered by the competition. Today we will be looking at the smaller and even more frugally priced sibling – the Corsair Accelerator 30GB – to see if this drive can alleviate our concerns.

Much like OCZ and their Synapse line, the Corsair Accelerator series relies on Nvelo’s Dataplex software to meld a moderately fast solid state drive to the user’s existing hard drive in order to create one “hybrid” storage solution. As with the larger version, the 30GB unit relies upon a standard SATA 3Gb/s Nova Series 2 drive. As mentioned extensively in the previous review, this drive uses a less capable SandForce controller but in this instance it is the SF2141 instead of the SF2181.

Unfortunately, the 7% over-provisioning found with the standard Nova Series 2 drive has also been carried over from the 60GB model. Based on previous experience, this does raise serious concerns over short and long term performance loss. Luckily, the Accelerator 30GB has an ace up its sleeve which may help mitigate these concerns. Namely, with an asking price of only $59, this model may so frugally priced that nothing in the same price range will be able to match it.

  Corsair Accelerator 30GB SSD Cache Drive Review