The Plextor M3 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on April 5, 2012 3:05 AM ESTAS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Performance
The AS-SSD sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers. The result is a pretty big reduction in sequential write speed on SandForce based controllers, while other drives continue to work at roughly the same speed as with compressible data.
Plextor M3 does well in incompressible sequential speeds as well. Its incompressible sequential read speed is average in our chart, but the difference between most SATA 6Gbps SSDs is only a few percent—nobody is significantly faster here. Incompressible sequential write speed is the best we've seen on a Marvell based SSD, but the Samsung SSD 830 and OCZ Octane retain their crowns.
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ecuador - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
He he, I read the article before the update and it sounded to me like it was written by a 15 year old! Little known Plextor... lolGood thing you updated, but in general when commenting on a company for an article do a little google search in case you are missing something ;)
JarredWalton - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Just because you can google a company to read about them (Kristian had already done that -- note the paragraph about them being a subsidiary of Shinano Kenshi Corporation), it doesn't mean everyone out there is familiar with the company. I sort of laughed when Kristian said he hadn't head their name until a few months back, but then, there were plenty of companies I wouldn't have known a thing about when I was 17.Kristian Vättö - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
My point is that Plextor has not been in the spotlight for years. I was just surprised when the name came up because I seriously had not heard much about them. I consider myself to be pretty updated when it comes to the SSD front but I still had not heard the name Plextor until a few months back. That's why I wrote what I wrote. In SSD context, Plextor can be a new name for many, or at least it was for me :-)I admit that I did not know about their success in the ODD market in the 90s but then again, I was still spoon-fed at that time :-P
christoi - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
On the second page, on the test setup it says "Intel Core i7-2500K." I assume it's an i5 from the 3.3ghz clock?Kristian Vättö - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Yeah, it's an i5. Thanks for the heads up, fixed it :-)BolleY2K - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
...are the 5 year warranty and the included version of Acronis True Image, which allows the user to easily clone his existing OS drive to the SSD.These two things are not included in the packages of most other SSDs on the market and in my opinion add to the value of the M3 package, so should be mentioned in the review.
Btw. I own the 128GB and am very pleased with it - easy installation (also due to the included software), good performance and entirely issue free so far. :-)
Kristian Vättö - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
At least my version did not come with Acronis True Image. The included clone utility is called Echo and is made by NTI. Not that it matters as the tool worked flawlessly when I copied my boot drive to the M3 :-)BolleY2K - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Ah ok - I live in germany and over here you get Acronis. Well, as long as it works, it doesn´t matter how it is called I guess. ;-)I still think these 2 goodies should be mentioned and also kept in mind while discussing the price of the M3. Also the QA of these drives is very good - plextor states 20 hours of testing for every single SSD they ship and a RMA rate of 0,5%.
ckryan - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I picked up a Plextor M3P, and here you get NTI.I went to try it out, and it did not play nice with Acronis which was on my system. After settting it up, the system reboots and loads a linux partition to do the copy operation... well, it didn't work, and then I couldn't get past the linux boot on subsequent restarts.
I could just revert to a clone from a week prior on another SSD, but not everybody has it like that.
The NTI Echo probably works quite well if you don't already have another clone suite installed like acronis.
The M3P is totally bitchin' though.
Jocelyn - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I got my 256GB M3 for $290 in February and the 128GB often hits $150-$160. Anyway, Thanks for finally doing a review on the M3 and I <3 Toshiba Toggle Nand!!