INTRODUCTION

   When the first mass production consumer oriented solid state drives (SSDs) made their appearance roughly 5 years ago we were all swept away by the performance gap compared to normal mechanical drives which in some cases was as much as 3 times over. Back then however price was indeed a huge issue and thus it wasn't until around 2 years ago that prices took a serious dive and allowed more and more people to own one either in their systems or to carry around as a portable solution. However although prices are very low as we speak since the introduction of SSDs we haven't really seen anything ground breaking that can match the how we felt back then and by that i mean that back then even normal consumers could "feel" the difference in loading times and system responsiveness whereas now this is not the case. Of course the technology behind SSDs keeps improving and aside the incredibly fast PCIex solutions we've just seen the introduction of 12Gbps drives however those are primarily aimed towards demanding enterprise use and because of that their launch prices are as expected off the charts. So since the next best thing for consumers is regular SATA III SSDs today we will be taking a thorough look at the PX-256M5Pro by Plextor.

   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 Plextor PX-256M5Pro is an SATA III 256GB SSD based on the third-generation Marvell 88SS9187-BLD2 dual core controller (can achieve 200MB/s over 8 channels), the latest 19nm Toshiba Toggle-mode MLC flash modules and 512MB DDR3 buffer. It also offers full drive encryption via AES-256 (the Marvell controller is AES-Validated by the US Government), features all the latest 128-bit error correction codes, has an MTBF (Meantime Between Failures) of 2.4 million hours and is backed by a five-year lightning fast warranty only Plextor can offer. Such features certainly are not something new and revolutionary since there are many SSD models currently in the market that share them as well but what we are mostly interested in is the drives performance so without further delay let's see what the PX-256M5Pro by Plextor can dish out.