The Plextor M3 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on April 5, 2012 3:05 AM ESTFinal Words
Let's be frank: I'm surprised. When I first got the Plextor M3, I wasn't expecting much from it. A Marvell based SSD from a smaller, somewhat unknown SSD brand is not too promising. If this had been a SandForce based SSD, then we all know what the performance would be like since all OEMs except Intel use the stock firmware. However, Marvell's controllers require a lot more work as the stock firmware that Marvell provides is in need of work. Having your own firmware team is a must if you plan on competing anywhere other than the low-end market. That requires capital, which can be an obstacle for a small firm. With Plextor being a subsidiary of a massive company, they should have the capital they need, and judging by the peformance results, they do.
The Plextor M3 isn't the fastest drive we have tested, but it comes in very close in many tests. It's clearly the fastest Marvell based SSD and it beats its Marvell siblings quite handily in most metrics. SandForce has been and still is extremely fast, but what Plextor has shown is that Marvell's controllers can keep up with SandForce when equipped with great firmware.
I've only really got two complaints. The first one is Plextor's pricing. I think Plextor may be pricing themselves out of competition in the smaller capacities. While the price difference with other brands in 64GB and 128GB capacities is only about $15 on average, that's quite a lot when put into perspective. In percentages, the 64GB M3 is 16% and the 128GB M3 is 9% more expensive than the other drives on average. If you could save 10% on each component in a new system, most people will opt for pricing over brand name.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (4/2/2012) | ||||
| 64GB | 128GB | 256GB | 512GB | |
| Plextor M3 | $110 | $180 | $340 | $660 |
| Crucial m4 | $88 | $155 | $315 | $630 |
| Intel 520 Series | $110 | $180 | $345 | $800 |
| Samsung 830 Series | $105 | $185 | $300 | $780 |
| OCZ Vertex 3 | $90 | $178 | $340 | $770 |
In my opinion, the M3 would be a lot more attractive if Plextor lowered the prices of 64GB and 128GB models by even $10. 64GB and 128GB capacities are often the most popular capacities right now (as spending $300+ on a single SSD is quite rare), so if you want to be competitive, that's the niche you should focus in. Plextor could even increase the pricing on their higher capacity drives while still remaining competitive. Then again, perhaps Plextor is hoping to skip directly to the more lucrative 256GB and 512GB market, as the lower capacity market is already quite cutthroat.
My second complaint is that reviewing the M3 made me lust for something better, and it's called the M3 Pro. The controller is the same Marvell 88SS9174-BLD2 but Plextor has taken the firmware one step further and this has resulted in better performance. I'm not going to go into detail about the M3 Pro here, but it reportedly provides up to 540MB/s read and 450MB/s write speeds along with random read of 75K IOPS and 69K IOPS random write. Hopefully we will be able to get our hands on a review sample soon.
Overall, Plextor M3 is a good performer - and we didn't notice any issues during our testing. It's fast in every aspect, has good gargabe collection, and isn't too power hungry. There is one big unknown though: Reliability. Current generation Marvell based SSDs in general have been fairly reliable, especially when put against SandForce, but firmware plays such a big role with the Marvell controller that you can't really know for sure.
Compatibility and reliability can take months to months to truly understand, so as always proceed with caution. There are great, known good solutions on the market at competitive prices already so there's no need to take a risk on an SSD before its reliability has been proven.
In any case, it's good to see that Marvell's controller still has legs.
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Kristian Vättö - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Oops! Thanks, fixed it now. I added the Vertex 4 scores right before this went live so that's why Vertex 4 is not included in any of the analyses.wvh - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Back at the end of the '90s we used to burn a lot of CDs at university, and only the Plextors lasted and rarely burned coasters. It was the brand to have. In fact, the only writer that hasn't broken down on me yet is my Plextor.This isn't a shill ad – it's just a CD-writer after all – I'm just surprised to hear you've never heard of Plextor.
hrrmph - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I may have missed it, but more emphasis on the inclusion (or lack) of toolbox software and what functions it provides would be appreciated. Preferably near the beginning of the review.When I look at ranking SSDs, the inclusion of toolbox software that supports Secure Erase and possibly even 'settable spare area' is important to me.
I find manual (non-toolbox) methods of Secure Erase to be overly complicated and time-consuming.
So the inclusion of toolbox software that supports Secure Erase, and thus easy maintainability is important.
Settable spare area is also nice, because I'm willing to buy an SSD that is the next size up just to get some more spare area, because reliability is extremely important to me.
So when reading a review, while it's nice to know that the manufacturer took the time to provide good firmware and good validation (I'm not sure that validation was well-covered in this review either), it's also very nice if I can quickly 'suss out' whether the manufacturer took the time to make a good toolbox.
To my knowledge, only Intel, OCZ, and Samsung provide a toolbox that allows for easy Secure Erase from inside Windows, assuming the drive is connected to a machine as a secondary drive.
Similarly, I think that only Samsung is allowing settable spare area in their toolbox.
I usually eliminate OCZ from consideration these days because Intel and Samsung provide very adequate alternatives, and most importantly, I saw OCZ forum moderators horribly and publicly abusing some of the other OCZ customers. So while I wasn't abused by OCZ when I was a customer of theirs, I saw the potential.
Coming back to reviews, AT still writes the best reviews in my opinion. I like the non-emotional tone, and the long length, detail, and insightful analysis included in the reviews make them stand out from the crowd.
Other review sites tend to miss even basic points, or worse, they get breathlessly emotional and sensationalist over small differences in the various products. I think AT knows when something is worth getting worked up over, and when it's just run of the mill.
My understanding of the review, is that the Plextor M3 256GB is run of the mill.
I hope I'm not missing something here :).
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
i agree wholeheartedly - Samsung's toolbox is definitely the new gold standard here. I've been pushing folks behind the scenes to ramp up the quality of their options as well. I want to start paying more attention to it as it's a huge part of the user experience.Take care,
Anand
Kristian Vättö - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Unfortunately, there is no toolbox software included in Plextor M3. I have to say I'm not a fan of secure erase either, especially during write tests because this is starting to feel like work!I'll definitely try to concentrate more on the software in future reviews as several readers have requested it :-)
Coup27 - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
I'm a massive Samsung fan and I have a contact there who says Samsung will be releasing an updated ssd magician either this month or next which will also report ssd life like Intels do. Think they realised disabling the smart values to do it yourself was a mistake, esp if u want to put one in a server.cooldadd - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Kristian, I commend your writeup. New and capable talents are welcome in this arena... You will certainly have a chorus of voices with earlier/other perspectives, but they in their own way will bring you "up to date" on history prior to your entry into the mix!We are living in an amazing frenzy of technical advancement. Thirty years into the development of the telephone, for instance, not only would few people have been able to have technical discussions over its progress, but there was no popularly-available medium in which to discuss it!
I discovered AnandTech when it was new, sixteen years into my mainframe career, started by a young person like yourself who happened have a sharp technical curiosity and an ability to write well. I hope your contributions will follow in similar fashion.
Bozo - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
I must be getting old...Back when burnable CDs came out you needed a SCSI burner like 'Smart & Friendly' to make more good CDs than coasters. Then Plextor introduced one of the first PCI burners that actually made more good CDs than coasters. It was the CD burner to have if you were serious about making usable CDs.
I feel old.
sbmeirow - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
If you haven't heard of Plextor, then you are a newbie, and I don't read articles written by n00b's.Coup27 - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Idiot.