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 GBPlextor M5S 256 GB(PX-256M5S)Plextor M5P 256 GB (PX-256M5P)
Current Price$248$210$210$230Awaiting MSRP
ProcessorSamsung S4LJ204X01-Y040Marvell 88SS9174-BLD2Marvell 88SS9187-BLD2Marvell 88SS9174-BLD2Marvell 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)
NAND2x-nm MLC Toggle-mode DDRMicron 25 nm Synchronous MLCIntel 25 nm Synchronous MLCMicron 25 nm Synchronous MLCToshiba 19 nm MLC Toggle-mode DDR
FirmwareCXM03B1Q000F1.51.01.0
Formatted Capacity238 GiB238 GiB238 GiB238 GiB238 GiB
InterfaceSATA 6Gb/sSATA 6Gb/sSATA 6Gb/sSATA 6Gb/sSATA 6Gb/s
Form Factor2.5" 7 mm2.5" 9.5 mm2.5" 9.3 mm2.5" 9 mm2.5" 7 mm
WarrantyThree YearsThree YearsFive YearsThree YearsFive Years
Sequential Read (MB/s)520500560520540
Sequential Write (MB/s)400260510390450
4 KB Random Read (IOPS)80 00045 00090 00073 00094 000
4 KB Random Write (IOPS)30 00050 00085 00070 00086 000
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Header Cell - Column 0 Test System and Software Setup
CPUIntel Core i7-2700 (Sandy Bridge), 3.5 GHz, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-saving features disabled
MotherboardAsus P8Z68-V, Z68 Chipset, LGA 1155, BIOS 3402
MemoryCorsair Vengeance 4 x 4 GB DDR3-1600
GraphicsAMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB
StoragePlextor PX-256M5P, SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware 1.0
Operating SystemWindows 7 (64 Bit) SP1
Intel Chipset Drivers10.8.0.1003
AMD Graphics DriverCatalyst 12.6
Benchmarks
Anvil's Storage UtilityRC3
hIOmonClient Version 7.0.229.0
HD Tune Pro5
Iometer2006.07.27
Richard Hart
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