INTRODUCTION
SATA compatible solid state drives (SSDs) may have been the ones to start their very own small performance revolution in the PC market almost a decade ago but as we speak thanks to several advancements in the field the tiny M.2 and full size PCI-express based models are the ones mostly preferred by professionals, serious gamers and enthusiasts. Fortunately although a few years back consumers only had a handful of such solutions to choose from by just a couple of manufacturers today most have at several such models in their product lines something which as expected has helped not only keep prices low but has also helped boost performance and durability levels. Plextor is without doubt one of the oldest players in the market and although they already have a rather successful PCIe SSD model in their lineup (M6e) they just recently released an updated version called the M6e Black Edition.
PLEXTOR is a world-leading developer of award-winning solid state drives, and other high-performance digital storage devices for professionals, consumers, and enterprises. The PLEXTOR brand of storage and multimedia products is owned by Shinano Kenshi of Japan. The PLEXTOR brand name was created in United States in 1993, and comes from two parts: PLEX and TOR. “PLEX” originated from the suffix of “multiplex”. Here, “multiplex” means relating to a system of transmitting several messages or signals simultaneously on the same circuit or channel, just as making silk which is being composed of many materials and needed a precise and delicate process. “TOR” originated from motor, which is the first product with Shinano Kenshi’s core technologies in electric industry. Since the introduction of our very first CD-ROM back in 1989, PLEXTOR has had an obsessive approach to quality and performance. As we grew, PLEXTOR’s legendary optical drives became the performance benchmark against which all others in the industry were measured. Today that legend lives on, not only in our new generation of Blu-ray drives but in our multi-award winning solid-state drives. As additional users discover the benefits of our high-performance SSDs, our engineers continue to insist that every PLEXTOR product be designed to deliver maximum reliability and true performance.
The M6e Black Edition is an PCIe 2.0 x2 M.2 interface SSD (just like the M6e before it) based on a Marvell PCIe to flash controller (88SS9183) with 19nm MLC NAND flash modules by Toshiba (2nd gen A19) and currently available in 128, 256 and 512GB capacities. Unfortunately as expected although the 512GB variant offers a very good write performance of up to 625MB/s that number drops to 580MB/s for the 256GB model and even less at 335MB/s for the 128GB model which we have here today. If these numbers however are not enough for you then you're in luck since much like Samsung (RAPID) Plextor also offers their very own PlexTurbo caching software (SSD Smart Cache Technology) which basically uses a chunk of your system RAM to accelerate read/write performance. Sounds promising right?
SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS
The M6e Black Edition gets shipped inside a black box with the main product features and drive capacity listed at the front.
The factory roll-out date along with the serial and part numbers are all placed on a sticker found at the bottom of the box.
Moving at the rear of we find both the features and specifications of the M6e black edition SSD.
As you can see the drive is placed between two rather thick Styrofoam spacers.
Contained inside the box are the M6e Black Edition SSD, utility CD, VIP sticker, Plextor sticker, quick installation guide and a single mounting screw.
THE M6E BLACK EDITION
Plextor chose a black and red color theme and as many of you know that's one of my favorite color combinations.
Perhaps the most important addition to the M6e Black Edition is this large red heatsink which looks a lot like flames.
The PCB used is black all around but doesn't have anything "fancy" at the rear like the front.
To allow hot air to leave the card Plextor perforated the PCI bracket.
A SATA power connector is placed at the top of the card and although most users will not need it still if you have many cards installed in your system we recommend using it.
You can connect the HDD activity LED of your mainboard (or other custom lighting) with the card by using the two pins placed at the front.
Since many of you might get curious we placed the previous M6e model right next to the new M6e Black Edition to showcase their differences.
Plextor has used a 2280 design M.2 SSD model that measures 80mm in length and 22mm i width (unfortunately it's PCB is not black).
A total of 8 Toshiba 19nm (A19 2nd gen) MLC NAND flash modules are placed on both sides of the PCB (the number is the same for all models, only the capacity changes).
The PCIe to flash controller used is by Marvell and uses two PCIex lanes.
PLEXTOR SOFTWARE
First of all you should download the PlexTurbo software from Plextor’s online support page, run it and restart your system (for this review we used version 2.2.0). Worth mentioning is that in order to use the PlexTurbo software the drive must first be partitioned.
If you want access to more information regarding the drive i strongly recommend downloading and installing the latest Plextools. From within you can check the drive health, TRIM status, secure format the drive, check for new firmware updates, run diagnostics, check the drives SMART page and finally you can enable/disable PlexTurbo (if you didn't download the standalone version which might be newer than the one used in Plextools).
TEST BED
TESTING METHODOLOGY
After over 7 years of testing sold state drives i have concluded that it's almost impossible for any single benchmark suite to accurately measure their performance and that's why in certain benchmark suites we see amazing read/write performance numbers with some drives while in others things are quite different. The reason behind this is that some benchmarking suites are configured to read and write random chunks of data while others read and write constant (sequential) ones. So that's why i always use a very wide selection of benchmarking suites including AIDA64, HD Tach RW, HD Tune Pro, Crystal Disk Mark, Sisoftware Sandra Pro, AS SSD, IOmeter and ATTO. To get the most accurate results each test gets repeated a total of 6 times with the average performance numbers recorded into our charts. Also as of February 25th 2015 our results will also include the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) IOMeter tests. These tests include a 12 Hour write test used to “simulate” performance degradation over time and a mixed workload test which basically shows what you can expect when using an SSD continuously for roughly two hours. Unfortunately due to the time required for these tests we repeat them a total of 3 times and not 6 as the above.
Many people have made inquiries about our charts in the past so once again please do keep in mind that the Charts have the average performance numbers of each drive recorded and not the peak (highest) ones. Also although every single one of these programs can help potential buyers choose the right drive for their needs you should also remember that from any kind of benchmark up to real world usage the gap is not small (and usually most differences will go unnoticed by most people). All tests were performed in a fresh Windows 7 Ultimate x64 installation with every update installed up to June 3rd 2015.
TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO
TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO
TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64
TEST RESULTS – AS SSD / IOMETER
TEST RESULTS – IOMETER SNIA
TEST RESULTS – PLEXTURBO
We also ran some tests with PlexTurbo enabled to check and see what you can expect from it.
CONCLUSION
First of all i need to point out that we don't consider 128GB to be enough for most people, not even for just the OS and the software one may need to install and since we also knew that this model would not perform on par with the 256/512GB variants we did expect Plextor to send one of those instead. This wasn't possible unfortunately so do remember that when looking at the write performance of the 128GB model since it doesn't represent the ones offered by the two other members of the M6e Black Edition family. With this out of the way i can't say that we were very impressed with the overall performance of the drive. Sure it's faster than most SATA III based models currently (in read anyways) and that means quite a bit of course but considering that some PCIex drives surpass the 1000MB/s (1GB/s) mark we were hoping for more. The PlexTurbo cashing software delivers on that but as many of you may now much like Samsung’s RAPID the real-world benefits are not as great. The good news however is that if you happen to own a DDR4 based system you will get much higher numbers than the ones we did and thus you may benefit more from PlexTurbo making it worth "sacrificing" some of your systems memory.
Some people consider paying a small premium over SATA models to get a PCIex based SSD as not "worth" it but having used such products for almost 4 years now i don't really agree with them. I do believe that for most people these models will not offer anything more than an SATA III based model would but for people looking to get the maximum out of their systems a PCIex based SSD is pretty much the best thing alongside a SAS based SSD which will probably cost a lot more if you add up the cost of an SAS compatible card. So at a current price tag of USD199.99 inside the EU (Newegg.com) and 180Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) the M6e Black Edition 128GB PCI Express SSD may not come cheap but it's almost worth every single penny (once again capacity is too low) and that's why it gets our Golden Award.
PROS
- Excellent Build Quality
- Very Good Performance Levels (Read)
- Design (For Some)
- AES 128/256 Hardware Encryption
- Supports TRIM
- 2.4 Million Hours MTBF
- PCIe Solution
- PlexTurbo Software
- 5 Years Warranty
CONS
- Price (For Some)
- Write Performance (128GB Model)