Plextor M6S & M6M (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on April 10, 2014 6:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench 2011
Back in 2011 (which seems like so long ago now!), we introduced our AnandTech Storage Bench, a suite of benchmarks that took traces of real OS/application usage and played them back in a repeatable manner. The MOASB, officially called AnandTech Storage Bench 2011 - Heavy Workload, mainly focuses on peak IO performance and basic garbage collection routines. There is a lot of downloading and application installing that happens during the course of this test. Our thinking was that it's during application installs, file copies, downloading and multitasking with all of this that you can really notice performance differences between drives. The full description of the Heavy test can be found here, while the Light workload details are here.
In our old Storage Bench, the M6S and M6M do much better. They are still not best-in-class drives but are able to compete with the Samsung 840 EVO and other mainstream drives. The scenarios here might apply better to average client workloads, whereas the new 2013 Bench focuses on worst-case performance that is important for heavy users and professionals. Unless price is a significant factor, getting a better SSD is generally recommended for long-term use.
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prime2515103 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I find it disappointing how average Plextor has become, yet they keep their pricing at a point where one might expect to get something at least slightly exceptional.I do have an M5M in my laptop and haven't had any problems with it, so I'll give them that. The selection of mSATA drives was pretty sparse when I bought it though, and it was on sale for $108 (which was quite good at the time), otherwise it definitely would not have been my first choice.
Cellar Door - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I agree, I will be going with samsung evo for my msata drive. Very disappointing for the price.Samus - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
M500 is still the best deal for an average, reliable SSD. Great for basic business and family PC's.rufuselder - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Me too. But either way, there are some much better storage options out there. /Rufus from http://www.consumertop.com/best-computer-storage-g...dylan522p - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
That was good basic explanation of the differences between everyones NAND! Thanks for doing that.nathanddrews - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
The pictures of the IMFT and Samsung processes are all clean and uniform... the Toshiba and Hynix processes look like a 3-year-old with a crayon made them.zodiacsoulmate - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
yea... why they look like that? maybe they are hard to color? why they look so random...extide - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
LOL, I noticed that too, it's like, geez how does that stuff even work! Looks so sloppy!Kristian Vättö - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Keep in mind that the diameter of the photo is a few dozen nanometers and it's extremely hard to achieve 100% precision with lithographies that small. At least IMFT has been using air gaps before and it's a mature process for them but Toshiba and Hynix added them to the current generation, making it quite new for them.creed3020 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Kristian thanks for such an in-depth technical and product review. I really appreciate how in your reviews graphs are accompanied with text explaining the results and providing an opinion on the results. I can read a graph but interpretation of those graphs and data trends is often missing from reviews here at AT.I am surprised that such a new drive isn't also available in M2 format but I guess they have the M6e for that. Is there a review of that drive coming as well?