Plextor M6S 256GB Solid State Drive Review

Introduction Our look over Plextor's M6- SSD product line has seen us look at their M6e PCIe based M.2 drive, where the limitations of the SATA interface are no match for top end performance and more recently the M6M, a mSATA drive that packs the same components but in a tiny frame, with speeds that set it apart from many other drives in its class. Today we're looking at the final piece of the SSD puzzle with a drive that looks much more standard if it were, with a 2.5" chassis and the same ingredient list that we saw with the M6M and M6e. Available in capacities ranging from 128GB up to 512GB, the M6S offers IOPs speeds of up to 94K read, 80K write with sequential speeds of 520MB/s read and 440MB/s write. Sat at the heart of the drive is a dual-core Marvell 88SS9188 controller giving the drive around 30-50% drop in power consumption compared to the last generation M5S. Plextor keep their drive bundles very much to the point - you get the drive and a multi-language guide, no more, no less. The box itself is rather bright, with a bold image of the drive on the front of the box with the capacity stuck on below. A Closer Look Where many drives use stickers all over the front of the drive to display the brand and model, Plextor have always been more simplistic and to the point with the brand and model printed directly on to the brushed metal casing. The rear of the drive on the other hand does feature a sticker, with tons of information packed in, including conformity logos, model number, capacity, serial number and firmware revision also available. Inside the casing the 256GB M6S features all of its components on one side of the PCB, which is the same for all drives in the M6S series. Whereas SSDs traditionally use both sides of the PCB,which can be seen by the presence of SMT traces on the rear of the bard, the use of only a single side of the board here can cut down both the production costs and time - the end result hopefully being a lower cost to the consumer. Made up of eight Toshiba THS8TEG8DDKTA20 20nm MLC packages, each with a capacity of 256Gb / 32GB, the M6S has a Marvell 88SS9188 at the heart of the operation with a SKhynix branded DDR3 package sat to the side giving 256MB RAM. We can see that there is space for a second DDR3 IC and this would be used on 512GB SKUs of this drive. Test Procedure Test system: Supermicro C7Z87-OCE Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3 Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1866MHz Corsair H100i BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850W Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD We would like to thank Be Quiet, Supermicro, Intel, Corsair, Kingston and Lian Li for supplying us with our test system components. Many different software applications are also used to gain the broadest spectrum of results, which allows for the fairest testing possible. Software used: AIDA64 Extreme Engineer Anvil's Storage Utilities V1 AS SSD - Compression Benchmark ATTO CrystalDiskMark Tech Preview IOMeter PCMark 8 (Storage Test) In a bid to make our testing as thorough and as accurate as possible, we are always looking for ways in which to tweak and tune our testing methodology and to give a clearer picture at how a drive performs throughout its life, I have formulated a new way of testing that gives eight times the amount of data to analyse within the review. Whilst this means that testing each drive will take considerably longer to test - nearly 36 hours in fact, the picture that we are able to build up of the overall performance of each drive is far clearer, providing a more accurate analysis at how a drive performs under different conditions. The basis around the new method of testing is to do with how the performance of the drive improves or degrades as the amount of free space is reduced. To simulate this I will first of all test the drive when it is perfectly clean and fresh out of the box. Following on from this I will test the drive at key points as the volume is filled up with data, namely 25%, 50% and 75% full. As the type of data that is on the drive is directly relational to how the drive performs, I will be using a sample set of data that includes a mixture of small files such as text documents through medium-sized files such as photos and large video files. Intel's NASPT suite that I use for NAS testing generates a 15GB block of data and as this contains a wide variety of file types and sizes, it is perfect for this application. To fill up the drive I will copy this block of data in to the root folder and copy it to fill the drive as required. On top of this I will also take wear on the NAND in to consideration and this process obviously takes a long time to perform - so long under real world conditions that it is simply not practical. In order to accelerate this conditioning process I will use the SSD endurance test that lies within Anvils Storage Utilities and read / write 5TB of data to the drive through a process of filling the drive with thousands of small files of various sizes and compressibility (with randomised duration between each of the writes), then reading each of them back with a randomised time between each file. After this has completed, the data is then erased and the process starts again. This process of conditioning the drive can take anywhere upwards of 8-9 hours on a typical 256GB SATA III SSD, however the performance and capacity of the drive will influence the time it takes to condition the drive. Following the conditioning process, the benchmarking process as described above is repeated again with the volume filled with sample data to each percentage between test runs. Furthermore between each benchmark test, the drive will be left alone to allow the TRIM command to take place if the drive feels it is necessary. From previous experience, TRIM can heavily impact the drives performance as it takes place, so allowing a period of time between tests will eliminate this factor and any subsequent false performance figures. On each page that follows with the benchmark results, I have inserted the screenshots from the benchmark results when the drive is 75% full. In the drive comparison charts, the performance at 0% fill is used as these are the performance figures that I have recorded from drives in previous SSD reviews. AIDA64 Storage AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Unconditioned Conditioned Drive Comparison AS SSD The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are performed without using the operating system caches. In Sequential tests the program measures the time it takes to read and write a 1GB file respectively. With most of the benchmark tests showing peak performance from an SSD, I've changed AS SSD a little to now give us a clearer picture as to how the drive will perform given variable levels of file compression. Unconditioned Conditioned ATTO The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. Unconditioned Conditioned Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison I use the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data fill. CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to rapidly measure sequential and random read/write speeds. Here are some key features of "CrystalDiskMark": Sequential reads/writes Random 4KB/512KB reads/writes Text copy Change dialog design internationalization (i18n) Unconditioned Conditioned Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison I use the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data fill. Anvil's Storage Utilities Anvil's Storage Utilities is a new benchmarking utility that we have started using here at eTeknix, it's completely free to download and has the ability to test mainly hard drives and solid state drives, but also any other form of storage medium that you can throw at it. As well as testing the drive in a variety of benchmarking tests, it also has a drive endurance test that consistently reads and writes data to the selected medium to give days, months and potentially even years of use in a shorter period of time to see how the drive copes in the longer term. Unconditioned Conditioned Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison I use the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data fill. IOMeter IOMeter is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It is used as a benchmark and troubleshooting tool and is easily configured to replicate the behaviour of many popular applications. One commonly quoted measurement provided by the tool is IOPS. IOMeter allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the 'Maximum Disk Size', 'Starting Disk Sector' and '# of Outstanding I/Os'. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the 'Access Specifications' configure the I/O types to the file. Configurable items within the Access Specifications are: Transfer Request Size Percent Random/Sequential distribution. Percent Read/Write Distribution Aligned I/O's. Reply Size TCP/IP status Burstiness. Unconditioned Read / Write Conditioned Read / Write Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison I use the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data fill. PCMark 8 Storage Use the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark to test the performance of SSDs, HDDs and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games. You can test the system drive or any other recognised storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices. Unconditioned Conditioned Final Thoughts Pricing As a performance drive targeted at the mid to high-end region of the consumer market, Plextor have taken a leaf out of Crucial's book with pricing that is highly competitive; barely tipping over the $0.52/GB mark in the process. In the US M6S Pricing starts at around £80 for a 128GB drive, working up to $290 for 512GB whilst in the UK we see prices starting at £65 rising up to £250. In the case of the 256GB that we've got here, prices of £110 / $131 are available through the respective Amazon outlets. Overview Rounding off our look across the entire M6 product range that Plextor has to offer, the M6S has delivered the same hard drive that both the M6e and M6M did when we looked at them previously. Aside from the strong levels of performance right throughout the test range, the price point is one of the M6S' strongest selling points, pitting it very close to Crucial's Mx100 which took the SSD market by the scruff of the neck and gave it a good shake up earlier in the year. Going by the performance that is available on the M6e, which uses the same component set, I do wonder if the M6 family has a little more to give on the native SATA platform. We can clearly see from the performance charts that a little more oomph is hidden inside this drive and perhaps Plextor are keeping another card hidden up their sleeves - maybe in the form of the M6Pro? Only time will tell on this one. As for a cheaper drive in the consumer market, the choice between choosing the humble hard drive and the new-age SSD for a new build or upgrade is starting to become much easier. As the levels of performance seen on the cheaper drives start to become more of a common occurrence, in some respects the days of the hard drive in the consumer environment are certainly numbered. Pros: Competitive price point Marvell controller Consistent levels of performance Cons: The 512GB M6S is still rather expensive compared to the 128GB and 256GB SKU's "Plextor's M6S has rounded off the M6 family with a hat-trick of goals being scored. Where some brands fail to hit the nail right on the head in each area of the market, the M6 line with its M.2, mSATA and SATA drive has claimed an outstanding victory." Thanks to Plextor for providing this review sample.