Plextor S3G 256GB M.2 SATA3 Solid State Drive Review

Bohs Hansen / 7 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing and Availability

At the time of review, the drive was only found listed on Polish websites for pre-order. There, it starts at €97.25. We can expect it to arrive in other markets at a very similar price point.

Conclusion

M.2 isn’t generally as common a form factor as the 2.5-inch is, but it’s getting there. Plextor’s S3 series comes in both and today we looked at the M.2 version. The small and thin form factor makes it perfect for space restrained systems such as SFF systems and ultrabooks. A lot of the times, those systems won’t have space for a 2.5-inch 7mm drive. The S3G is a great example of such a drive, on a budget and compatible with older systems. The fact that it isn’t NVMe makes it a little slower, but also compatible with more systems.

The S3 is best when reading and not as great when writing a lot of data, which is common in this product segment. That said, what it does, it does well. It’s also an improvement over the previous series, the S2. We aren’t breaking any speed records with this drive, but there are situations where it would be useful. Media and web-surfing PCs that only play some videos and music, surf the internet, and do a little light office work such as letter writing, then the S3G will boost you to speeds your old mechanical hard drive simply can’t. And that’s what it is built for, when it comes down to it. As a better alternative to loud, power-hungry, and slow mechanical HDDs.

However, PlexTurbo does add another factor to the table. By using a little portion of your system’s memory, the drive can boost the performance to a new length. It is essentially a RAM disk, but it works great and it makes a noticeable difference. It also increases the endurance of your drive by performing less writes to it. Last but not least, the drive is backed by a nice 3-year warranty.

Pros

Good upgrade choice from HDD
Full NAND capacity available
Compatibility with older devices
Increased value through software features

Cons

TLC NAND affects continuous writes

“The S3G is Plextor’s M.2 version in the S3 series. It’s a budget-friendly drive in a small form factor for an increased system performance when compared to HDDs.”