New Plextor SSDs And An 'Overwatch' Tournament At Computex 2017
Plextor skipped the Computex show floor madness this year and instead put on a star-studded, single-afternoon kickoff party for the M8Se NVMe SSD series. "Stars" may be stretching it a bit, but it was all in good fun with everyone enjoying themselves. The real star of the show was the upcoming Plextor M8Se NVMe SSD that will hit store shelves in the coming weeks. Plextor also gave media a sneak peak at the M9Se that features (you guessed it) RGB LEDs and Toshiba 64-layer TLC NAND behind a Marvell Eldora NVMe controller.
We participated in the 5-v-5 Overwatch exhibition match that featured a journalist, pro gamer, and three Asian models/pro bloggers per team. It's safe to say this old man still has it. I scored 51% of the points while leading our team to victory in three out of three matches. I wouldn't mention this at all except for the fact that I haven't played a first person shooter in three years, and my kids will have to read about it somewhere. I was also the least photographed "celebrity" at the event.
At Computex 2016, Plextor displayed the M8Se series, the first NVMe TLC SSD from the company. The series shipped to media just prior to Computex 2017, and we expect retail availability soon. Early tests show strong performance from the Marvell Eldora 8-channel controller paired with Toshiba 15nm TLC planar NAND. The event was the official kick-off party, but the M8Se may have been overshadowed by the drive the company plans to release next year.
As in the previous two years, Plextor also displayed the product we will celebrate at the next Computex. We received our first glimpse of the M9Se NVMe SSD that's scheduled for review in mid-2018. The M9Pe is similar to the M8Se but will utilize Toshiba 64-Layer BiCS FLASH and a year's worth of firmware optimizations on the Marvell Eldora controller. The drive also sports the latest in RGB lighting for that custom blinky-blink, swirl, chroma effect that all of the kids dig these days. Plextor didn't give us too many details about the drive or the LED control software. We expect to hear more at Flash Memory Summit later this year.
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Chris Ramseyer was a senior contributing editor for Tom's Hardware. He tested and reviewed consumer storage.
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AgentLozen I've been seeing a trend on Tomshardware regarding the mention of LEDs on hard drives. I think the Computex roundup article bears mention of LED lighting for example.Reply
I'm saying this because I hate glowing things inside of my PC and I hate the notion that glowing adds value. I bought an MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming 8G a few months ago and when I saw the big lightbulb attached to it I rolled my eyes sooooo hard I could see my brain.
I wish they would stop building products made to impress 12 year olds. -
CRamseyer I'm with you on that front. I do have to say the LEDs on the motherboards make it so I don't have to turn the lights on in the server room anymore. At first I didn't like it but your system can be shut down but the lights stay on. It makes it really easy to swap M.2 SSDs in the rack.Reply
If I used desktop PCs with them on my desk it would be annoying BUT most utilities allow you to turn the feature off. As long as it doesn't add more than a couple of dollars to the product then I'm fine with it.