Plextor M5 Pro 256 GB Review: 19 nm NAND And Marvell's Latest

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Hot on the heels of its M5S, Plextor sent us the M5 Pro. Loaded with hot new technologies like 19 nm NAND and the latest Marvell controller, the company's flagship was certainly worth waiting for. How does it do against the established incumbents, though?

Test Setup And Drive Comparison

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Header Cell - Column 0 Samsung 830 256 GB (MZ-7PC256N) Crucial M4 256 GB (CT256M4SSD2) Vertex 4256 GB Plextor M5S 256 GB(PX-256M5S) Plextor M5P 256 GB (PX-256M5P)
Current Price $248 $210 $210 $230 Awaiting MSRP
Processor Samsung S4LJ204X01-Y040 Marvell 88SS9174-BLD2 Marvell 88SS9187-BLD2 Marvell 88SS9174-BLD2 Marvell 88SS9187-BLD2
DDR RAM Buffer Size (MB) 256 (128 x 2) 128 (128 x 1) 1,024 (2 x 512) 512 (2 x 256) 512 (2 x 256)
NAND 2x-nm MLC Toggle-mode DDR Micron 25 nm Synchronous MLC Intel 25 nm Synchronous MLC Micron 25 nm Synchronous MLC Toshiba 19 nm MLC Toggle-mode DDR
Firmware CXM03B1Q 000F 1.5 1.0 1.0
Formatted Capacity 238 GiB 238 GiB 238 GiB 238 GiB 238 GiB
Interface SATA 6Gb/s SATA 6Gb/s SATA 6Gb/s SATA 6Gb/s SATA 6Gb/s
Form Factor 2.5" 7 mm 2.5" 9.5 mm 2.5" 9.3 mm 2.5" 9 mm 2.5" 7 mm
Warranty Three Years Three Years Five Years Three Years Five Years
Sequential Read (MB/s) 520 500 560 520 540
Sequential Write (MB/s) 400 260 510 390 450
4 KB Random Read (IOPS) 80 000 45 000 90 000 73 000 94 000
4 KB Random Write (IOPS) 30 000 50 000 85 000 70 000 86 000
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • You have the wrong Marvell controller listed for the crucial M4 and the Plextor M5S. This controller is new.
    The old one was the 88SS9174-BKK2.
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/plextor-m3-crucial-m4-octane-performance-pro,3178.html
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    can we have a benchmark of the time it takes to install a fresh copy of Win7+SP1 on a SSD ? Because thats the first thing a user will do after buying a new drive.
    Reply
  • echondo
    mayankleoboy1can we have a benchmark of the time it takes to install a fresh copy of Win7+SP1 on a SSD ? Because thats the first thing a user will do after buying a new drive.
    I believe we can all assume it will take around 10-15 minutes. My old SATA2 Vertex drive can have Windows installed with all the Windows updates I want in around 20 minutes, it would be less time but I have to install all my drivers first for my motherboard :p
    Reply
  • fat-chunk
    Long live SSDs!
    Reply
  • grantwar
    I'd love to see how this drive fares against the samsung 840 Pro.
    Reply
  • SpadeM
    grantwarI'd love to see how this drive fares against the samsung 840 Pro.
    Here you go:
    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/665?vs=646
    Reply
  • JeanLuc
    I was on Youtube the other day on the Corsair channel and they were showing the advantages of 'Ram cache' which was lights years faster then SSD's in therms of throughput. Could Toms consider doing an article into Ram cache as I think it would be of interest to people who have 16-32Gb systems (since DDR3 is cheap at the moment) can spare the extra system ram to cache files and software.
    Reply
  • merikafyeah
    SpadeMHere you go: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/665?vs=646Wow. The 840 Pro beat the M5 Pro in virtually everything according to that data. The 840 Pro does cost significantly more though.
    Reply
  • merikafyeah
    JeanLucI was on Youtube the other day on the Corsair channel and they were showing the advantages of 'Ram cache' which was lights years faster then SSD's in therms of throughput. Could Toms consider doing an article into Ram cache as I think it would be of interest to people who have 16-32Gb systems (since DDR3 is cheap at the moment) can spare the extra system ram to cache files and software.TheSSDReview did something similar:
    http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/romex-fancycache-review-ssd-performance-at-13gbs-and-765000-iops-in-60-seconds-flat/

    No point in even comparing RAM to SSDs, as even "slow" RAM is faster than even the best SSDs by about the same amount as the best SSDs are faster than floppy disks.
    Reply
  • aicom
    This review would have been impressive if it was published 2 weeks ago. With the 840 Pro out, it simply blows the M5P out of the water. Too bad it wasn't included in the benchmark charts here.
    Reply