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Final Thoughts
In many ways, the Plextor M8V is like an OEM drive. It delivers decent performance and is marginally overpriced. System integrators often don't give you a choice of what components come in your system, but you do have a choice in the upgrade market.
Our biggest issue with the 512GB M8V is pricing. The $150 price tag competes directly with the Samsung 860 EVO that is a much better product in every way: we can go right down the list with performance, latency, notebook battery life, and endurance. Plextor has some unique points with the additional software suite, but some users will find it beneficial, and others will never even install it.
The value portion of the V has to come back around for the M8V to be attractive. It seems that Plextor forgot that when it gave this model the same price as the new Samsung SSD. Plextor could have targeted Crucial's MX500 and came away with a certain level of success. The M8V is slightly faster than the MX500 in some cases, but slower in others. Most users will not be able to tell the difference during typical desktop workloads, but they will notice the price difference during checkout. Pricing is dynamic, and Plextor could make a change. The company released the M9Pe at a discounted rate at first and later increased the prices for each capacity at a time when other companies were lowering prices of their high-performance NVMe SSDs.
The software suite, which includes PlexTools, PlexCompressor, and PlexVault, is the true standout feature. The latter two are unique to Plextor's SATA SSDs and a real benefit to users. PlexCompressor will compress the files you haven't read recently, and that frees up space on the flash. Over time it will increase the performance of your drive by not allowing it to degrade as rapidly.
Software or not, Plextor’s biggest issue is its inability to bring these value-focused products to market at realistic price points. The M8V is just the latest in a lengthy line of value-named SSDs that seem to forget their place in the market.
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