Corsair Force LE 480GB

A bog-standard SATA SSD; there’s nothing here to criticise, but equally nothing to set it apart from cheaper options

Corsair’s Force LE SSD delivers exactly the performance you’d expect from a mainstream SATA drive; to that extent it’s a perfectly decent choice. In its 480GB incarnation, it’s also one of this month’s most cost-effective SSDs, working out to 28p per GB. If you’re looking for a king-sized drive, however, then the 960GB model is much less of a bargain – online prices are around the £300 mark.

You don’t get many frills for your money. There are no brackets or spacers in the box, although you do get to download Corsair’s SSD Toolbox software. This pokey-looking utility lets you configure overprovisioning, as well as schedule regular TRIM operations if your operating system doesn’t handle them automatically. There’s also a basic disk clone function, which is good to see, even if the cryptic, icon-driven interface doesn’t inspire confidence.

The Force LE lacks hardware encryption, and the 480GB model’s official write tolerance of 120TBW is on the low side for a drive of this size. Don’t get too hung up on that, though; even if you write 30GB to the disk every single day, it’ll take more than ten years to reach the limit.

In short, this a basic, functional SATA SSD, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, the Crucial MX300 offers better features and software for an almost identical price – plus you get an extra 45GB of storage to play with.