Corsair Force 120GB Solid State Drive Review

The world of Solid State Drives is a fast-paced one, where things seemingly change at a breakneck pace as we have seen with the current crop of drives. While it seems like only yesterday we reviewed the Corsair Force F100 (which happened to be the first SandForce-based drive here at HWC), things have actually changed a lot since then. The SandForce market has fleshed out, presenting several highly regarded drives and there has even been some talk of more value-oriented drives using the SF-1222 controller as well. Therefore, in some it does seem fitting that we go back to where we began and look at Corsair’s other Force-series offering: the F120.

As the name suggests and unlike the F100, the F120 is a 120GB SandForce SF1200 based drive. Basically, SandForce recently provided another option for their clients: BIGGER drives which allowed for a minimized amount of over-provisioning in order to increase capacity. The result is the newer “extended” drives which promise all the great performance of their smaller brethren but with more room for all of you who need the space. This should also prove to be a boon for marketing departments as many customers had some difficulty justifying a 100GB SSD when 128GB drives from competitors were readily available. As such, the new F120 is for all intents and purposes supposed to be the exact same drive as the F100, just with more room “available”.

While it is relatively new on the market, the F120 is actually quite widely available throughout North America at retailers and e-tailers alike. However, since this IS a SandForce drive and thus a flagship model, it tends to come with a flagship price of about $350 US. This is actually less then what the F100 goes for and considering you get more room the newest Force-series drive may just make for one potent bang for your buck product.