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.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Plextor has used a small box to store the PX-256M5Pro which has a large product image at the front right next to the Plextor logo and above some of its main features.

At the rear of the box we see the features of the PX-256M5Pro, a product description in 18 languages, the specifications table, system requirements and bundle contents.

The PX-256M5Pro comes with a 3.5" mounting bracket, mounting screws, quick installation guide, warranty information paper and a software CD (includes the NTI Echo cloning software, NTI Backup Now EZ backup software, NTI SSD Performance Analyzer benchmark software and several NTI software trial versions).

THE PX-256M5PRO

The PX-256M5Pro follows the typical 2.5" factor, is 7mm thick and features an brushed aluminum enclosure.

Plextor has placed their logo at the top left of the drive.

A large sticker at the rear informs you of the barcode, serial number, manufacture date, firmware version installed from the factory (we updated the firmware to v1.05), model name, electrical specifications, drive capacity and several certification logos.

At the rear we see the SATA III connector but no pins since you can update the PX-256M5P either via the PlexTools Windows software or via a bootable iso which you can download from the Plextor support section.

Plextor has used a total of 16 NAND flash memory ICs (8 on each side of the PCB) along with two Nanya 256MB RAM ICs running at 1333MHz.

The Marvell Monet 88SS9187-BLD2 8-channel dual core controller is placed under a thermal pad and so the letters have faded out.

Each of the 19nm MLC toggle-mode NAND used by Toshiba is 16GB in capacity.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   After roughly 5 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 have always used 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.

   Many people made inquiries about the charts ever since the last comparison 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 potentials buyer 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 20th 2013.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TUNE PRO / HD TACH RW

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

TEST RESULTS - AS SSD / IOMETER

CONCLUSION

   Plextor has been my favorite Optical media manufacturer since the mid/late 90's and although at first naturally i wasn't very pleased to hear that Lite-On took charge after signing an agreement with Shinano Kenshi right now and after seeing them expand into other areas such as SSDs i can't help but to think that this was the right choice after all. That being said the M5 Pro (PX-256M5P) may not offer anything impressive in terms of performance compared to its immediate competition but the same can also be said about pretty much every single SATA III 6Gb/s SSD currently in the market regardless of controller type (Marvell/SandForce/Samsung/Intel/Indillinx). The bundled software is however a nice touch and i know many people for who this will be one of the main reasons to choose the PX-256M5Pro over other solutions. Personally i think that warranty is something that matters a lot when talking about storage hardware and with a 5 year ironclad warranty offered by Plextor it really can't get any better especially in combination with the drives excellent performance. Only thing that's left is for Plextor to finally release their long awaited PCIex based SSDs (and 12Gb/s models although native ones will not be cheap for a long time to come) to the public for us to get some serious performance boost.

   Since the M5 Pro 256GB SSD (PX-256M5Pro) already counts roughly 10 months since its initial release you can find it currently for a very attractive price tag of USD193.43 inside the USA (Purchase Directly from Amazon.com) and for 188Euros inside the EU (Purchase Directly from Amazon.co.uk). Overall the price may seem slightly high when compared to other models in the market but we are talking about a Plextor product and at least for people who know exactly what Plextor stands for a few bucks should mean nothing in the end (the bundled software obviously ups the price a bit as well). As for us well we are always here to weigh everything a product has to offer so for excellent read/write performance and an even better 5 year ironclad warranty the PX-256M5Pro by Plextor gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (Toshiba 19nm Toggle-Mode NAND Flash/Marvell Controller)
- Excellent Performance
- Bundled Software
- 5 Years Ironclad Warranty

CONS

- IOmeter Performance
- Price (For Some)