Plextor Announces M8V 2.5” And M.2 SATA SSDs With 3D NAND

Plextor released new consumer SATA SSDs built on 3D NAND flash. The M8V series drives are available in 2.5” and M.2 form factors with capacities of 128, 256, and 512GB.

Plextor began its foray into 3D NAND earlier this year with the release of its M9Pe series of SSDs. Those drives featured Toshiba 64-layer BiCS TLC NAND flash chips, the two-year-old Marvell 88SS1093 controller, and a PCI-E interface with NVMe support. For the M8V series, Plextor kept the Toshiba 3D NAND, but swapped the controller to a newer, but non-NVMe, Silicon Motion SM2258. This is a consumer-targeted SATA SSD, after all.

Sequential write speeds start at 400MB/s for the 128GB version and climb to 520MB/s for the 512GB version. Sequential read speed is listed as 560MB/s for all sizes. Random IOPs vary similarly, going from 60K/70k to 82k/81k (read/write) for 128GB and 512GB sizes, respectively. These numbers put it slightly behind a Micron 3D NAND-equipped competitor, the Crucial MX500, but usually only testing will show the real performance difference.

All capacities are covered by a three-year warranty. Write endurance is 70, 140, and 280TB for 128, 256, and 512GB sizes, respectively. This is significantly higher than the Crucial, but slightly lower than the 320TB endurance on the 512GB version of the M9Pe, which, as mentioned earlier, uses the same flash memory.

The 2.5” version of the M8V is called the M8VC, while the M.2 version is called the M8VG. We don’t have any availability or pricing data on either model yet.