Disconnected from the adapter card, Plextor's M6e is downright diminutive. Again, this is a 22 mm-wide, 80 mm-long device, which we expect to become a fairly common side for M.2-based SSDs moving forward.


In fact, unless you're reading this on a smartphone or tablet, you're probably seeing the front and back PCB shots larger than they actually are. M.2 storage can be 12, 16, 22, and 30 mm-wide, though most of what we've seen thus far conforms to the 22 mm standard, easily accommodating the width of NAND packages. An 80 mm length offers enough room for eight placements (four on each side). And if that's not enough for a specific application, PCBs can grow as long as 110 mm.
This is the second time we've seen Marvell's 88SS9183-BNP2 controller, too. Its first appearance was on SanDisk's aforementioned A110. The 88SS9183 rocks two native PCIe physical layers, which means it natively supports two second-gen PCIe lanes. That's fairly special functionality. Most of the PCIe-based SSDs we've tested were based on SATA processors alongside host bus or RAID hardware. After all, a modern RAID controller's job is connecting SATA or SAS storage to the PCI Express bus.
Marvell's implementation is essentially the same processor used in a great many SSDs with specific considerations for connecting through PCI Express. It's significant in that it's as low-power as we're used to on the desktop, and capable of exposing similar features.
The M.2 connector and Marvell's 9183
Next to the controller, we have Toshiba's 64 Gb Toggle-mode DDR manufactured on a 19 nm process. Again, that's the same flash found on Plextor's celebrated M5 Pro, rated for 3000 P/E cycles. We already know this stuff is fast.
It's also worth a reminder that Marvell's 9183 controller and Plextor's firmware are in AHCI mode, supported by most modern operating systems without specialized drivers. The hardware does most of the things other SSD processors do, just over PCI Express. Differences to exist though, mostly with power consumption. DevSlp, for example, is a SATA command. The M6e should drop into a deep PCIe sleep state if the endpoint (that is, the slot Plextor's SSD populates) cooperates. We'll take a magnifying glass to power in just a bit.
Given the eight total NAND packages, we know each must employ a quartet of 64 Gb dies, totaling 256 GB. Plextor reserves just ~7% of that space for spare area.
Toshiba's NAND
- Plextor Gets A Jump on PCIe-Based M.2
- A PCIe Controller And Toshiba NAND
- How We Test Plextor's M6e SSD
- Results: Sequential Read And Write Performance
- Results: Random Performance
- Results: Performance Variation
- Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0
- Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0, Continued
- Results: Power Consumption
- Results: TRIM Testing With ULINK's DriveMaster 2012
- PCMark 8's Storage Consistency Test
- A Sexy Form Factor You'll Want More Than Need
raid 0. too expensive. that plextor
I bought a Lenovo Y410P shortly after they were released (and was incorrectly told it had mSATA not NGFF/M.2 for the SSD), and have been waiting over a year for a decent M.2 drive to put in it.
The drive itself has no wasted space. The bridge board has plenty, being that the drive is only 22mm x 80mm.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
It adds all of about a second. You'll never notice, and based on UEFI settings, you might never even see the Plextor op-rom splash screen at post.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
I bought a Lenovo Y410P shortly after they were released (and was incorrectly told it had mSATA not NGFF/M.2 for the SSD), and have been waiting over a year for a decent M.2 drive to put in it.
On the desktop, the demand for M.2 storage is not very high yet. In laptops, SATA M.2s are in high demand, but there isn't much reason to have a pure M.2 native PCIe Phy drive in a desktop yet. The M6e we looked at is built around the AIB bridge board, and thus isn't detachable from the M.2 drive itself, so despite the M.2 drive at the heart of the board, you still really can't buy a M.2 native PCIe drive yet. And even if you bought a M6e, ripped it out of the bridge board, and installed it in the Lenovo -- it probably wouldn't see more than a single lane of connectivity.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
BTW: I know it will void the warranty.
BTW: I know it will void the warranty.
BTW: I know it will void the warranty.
I posted the same question in the forums, and got an answer: NO!
If I wish to use a m.2 SSD, it looks like I'd have to get a Crucial M550 m.2 SATA SSD. No PCI-e SSD's available yet!
EDIT: 06/11/2014 - BTW, YES it will work. Mine does! And it uses the 2 PCI-e channels. My Z97 mobo sees it with no problems! That's what I'm running now.
Will be great to have these for notebooks, though an adapter will be needed for current releases, negating any performance gains. Because this option isn't dependent on, nor was designed for, a SATA 3 port. A true PCI-e port will be needed.
Who said that the PC was dead, again? We have every reason to keep them very much alive.
Cat