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Review: Plextor |
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Plextor is a company that many MyCE members
know and remember very well mainly for their optical drives, starting back from
the SCSI CD-R/RW and CD-ROM drives, and moving forward to DVD and BD burners. Moving
forward then... and as it was expected Plextor has moved into the SSD world.
Plextor might not have a huge history on Solid State Drives
but that doesn’t mean that you can underestimate them. A year back MyCE had
tested the PX-256M2S SSD, and the results were very impressive at that time, you
can read the review here.
A year has passed and the next generation of Plextor SSD’s is now available which
promises higher speeds, longer warranties and greater support, also a lower
price and better performance. So what more can you ask for?
We will try and answer this question. But
before we move on let’s take a quick look on the M3 series. The M3 series comes
on three different sizes, 64GB, 128GB and a 256GB drive. Each drive is loaded
with the latest technology that Plextor has to offer, starting with SATA III /
6Gbps Marvell controller and the TOSHIBA NAND. Plextor offers a five year
warranty and some more innovations that we will be taking a closer look at in this
review.
Plextor company information
Before we start our review we need to take
a look at the history of Plextor. A history that started back in 1918 but became
more known to us in 1998 when Plextor marketed its first CD-R/RW drive. You can
read the full history of Plextor by clicking here.
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD
Time to take a closer look at the package
and what it comes shipped with.
Packaging
Box front
Box rear
Inside the box
The package contained the PX-256M3 256GB
SSD, two packs of fixing screws, a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch converter bracket and a
CD-ROM containing the instruction manual and the Acronis True Image software.
The Plextor PX-256M3 series SSD
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD drive has a
brushed aluminium finish, and the Plextor logo printed in White. The size of
the drive is the typical 2.5” 69.85 x 100 x 9.5 (W x L x H) and it will fit in most
laptops.
Drive underside
The underside of the drive has the SATA
power and data connector, also a sticker that has all the info that is needed,
such as, the Serial number and model of the drive and also we can see the
manufacturing date of the drive, January 2012 for our test drive. The firmware
that the drive comes with is version 1.01, and four mounting holes for the
drive.
Now let's head to the next page, where
we will be having a more detailed view of the PX-256M3 SSD.....
Plextor PX-256M3 SSD hardware.
Now let’s take a closer look at the
hardware of the Plextor PX-256M3.
Drive internals
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (PCB top-side)
On the top side of the PCB, we can see eight
TOSHIBA MLC NAND chip packages and also the two DDR3 Cache chips.
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (PCB underside)
On the underside of the PCB we can see the
Marvell 88SS9174 SSD processor.
Marvell 88SS9174 SSD processor.
Above we see the Marvell 88SS9174 SSD processor,
designated 88SS9174 – BLD2 on the Plextor PX-256M3 SSDs.
Toshiba 24nm MLC NAND
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD has eight 32GB
Toshiba high quality Japanese NAND, and the available capacity that you get is
238GB.
Specifications
The following specifications can be found at
the Plextor website.
From the above specifications we can see a
very detailed view of the Plextor PX-256M3. The PX-256M3 gives has a read speed
up to 510MB/sec and a write speed up to 360MB/sec.
Before we move on to our tests, we'll spend
some time looking at what this drive has to offer to the consumer.
First stop is the five year warranty that Plextor offers, and that
shows a lot of faith in their M3 SSD. For the first three years you get the
standard collect and return from Plextor, and for the remaining two years you
can send the drive to back to Plextor. Overall this is very impressive and it's
very relaxing knowing that you are secured for the next five years.
True speed is there to ensure that you will get the best
performance from your SSD even if your drive gets “dirty” after some heavy use.
The general idea behind true speed is that it will prevent the drop in speed
after a heavy use and even if your drive gets heavily fragmented it will maintain
the performance of the drive. At first look all this seems impressive and it
will be tested in this review.
Let’s head to the next page where we
take a look at our testing methods and the review PC.
Test machine
For this review I will be using a computer
with the following configuration:
Hardware:
- Motherboard: AsRock Z68 Extreme 4 (Intel Z68
chipset) - Processor: Intel 2nd generation
Core i5 2500K - RAM: 8GB Kingston Hyper X DDR3 1600MHz (dual channel)
- GFX: Onboard Intel HD 3000
- Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC889 HD audio
controller - Hard disk OS: Western Digital Blue 500GB
- Hard disk storage: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1
- PSU: Corsair CX430 430W
- Display: Futsiju Siemens 22”
- Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit with
Service Pack 1
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD was connected to the
Intel native SATA 6Gbps (port 0) on the Z68 motherboard of our review PC and
all tests on the drive were carried out with the drive connected to this port.
AHCI mode was also selected for all drives
in the UEFI of our test PC, and all tests were carried out in this mode.
The SATA 6Gbps drivers used on our review
PC were the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) Version 10.6.0.1002.
Test applications
To test the performance of the Plextor
PX-256M3 256GB SSD, I will be using the following test applications in this
review.
- HD Tune
Pro - ATTO
- Iometer
- AS SSD
Benchmark - CrystalDiskMark
- Anvil’s
Storage Utilities
Test procedures
I will start off our testing procedures
explanation by stating that I did not run many synthetic benchmarks on the Plextor
PX-256M3 SSD. You may ask why I have run so few synthetic benchmarks?
SSD technology has moved so fast in the
last couple of years, that basic synthetic benchmarks alone are now of very
limited use, as they don't really tell us much about performance and how the
drive will behave in the real world. I have therefore decided to show some
basic benchmarks of the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD, and will complement this with
advanced benchmarks using IOMeter and AS SSD benchmark. I will also show how
the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD performs in the real world.
The reality of SSD performance
While I can easily show you which SSD is
technically the faster, when you use one of these modern SSDs as an operating
system drive it becomes very difficult to tell them apart as far as performance
is concerned.
A typical use of a small capacity SSD at
the moment is to have your operating system and applications installed onto the
SSD. The performance difference compared to a traditional HDD is enormous,
however when you start to compare SSD to SSD the difference becomes almost
impossible to detect.
Let’s look at why this is the case.
Drive A can boot to the desktop in 8.11
seconds, and drive B can boot to the desktop in 8.12 seconds, the difference in
time is milliseconds, and can one really tell the difference?
The fact is, all modern SSDs are only
ticking over when they are only running the OS and launching applications, it’s
only when you get to some of the larger capacity SSDs, with enough free space
to be able to hold the actual data that you’re going to be working with, be
that video, audio or pictures, for example, that you actually get a tangible
difference in performance. This is where the SSDs with the better sequential
performance start to pull well ahead of the SSDs which have lower sequential
read/write performance.
Small file random IOPS vs sequential performance
IOPS
This is a fairly complex subject, but I
will do my best to explain things in a manner that is easy to understand.
The term IOPS is the amount of input or
output transactions that can take place in a one second interval, so for
example, if an SSD is quoted as being able to cope with 20,000 4K random write
IOPS, then the SSD should be able to cope with 20,000 input transactions in a
period of one second. If the same SSD is said to be able to produce 20,000 4K
random read IOPS, then the same SSD should be able to produce 20,000 4K random
read output transactions in a one second interval.
Ok, now we have some figures to work with,
the next question is how many IOPS are actually required?
This will depend on your usage pattern. If
you are a typical desktop user who browses the internet, does some word
processing or perhaps some audio or video editing, and perhaps plays a few
games, then in actual fact, you don’t need to have massive 4K random read/write
performance. The actual amount of 4K random performance that is required for a
fast and smooth running system for a desktop user with a usage pattern similar
to the above will be well under 1,000 4K IOPS.
On the other hand, if the SSD is being used
for running a large and complex database server, then 4K random performance is
the absolute measurement of how fast that server will run, as this type of
application does most of its input and output transactions in the 4K domain.
So why would I need an SSD with 80,000 4K
IOPS for a desktop?
In fact you don’t need this type of
performance for a desktop, but an SSD which is capable of coping with 80,000 4K
IOPS will be faster than an SSD which can only cope with 20,000 4K IOPS.
OK, I just said if under 1,000 4K IOPS are
actually required for typical desktop usage, why is an SSD with 80,000 4K IOPS
faster than an SSD with only 20,000 4K IOPS, confused?
You may ask, if I only require 1,000 4K
IOPS surely the rest is wasted?
While you may never need 80,000 4K IOPS,
IOPS is all about latency. The reason that an SSD can cope with as much as 80,000
4K IOPS is because latency in this domain is very low. With 4K files, even if
you require to process 500 of them at the same time, you are not talking about
a huge amount of data, it has far more to do with how long it takes the SSD to
process a single file, and the amount of time required to process a single 4K
is all about how long it takes for the SSD to access or store that data before
it can move on to the next transaction.
In other words an SSD with 80,000 4K IOPS
performance will handle those 500 files faster than the SSD with 20,000 IOPS.
So how will a desktop user even notice this
faster speed if so little 4K random IOPS and data are actually used?
Multitasking is a good example. The more
tasks you run at the same time, you more you will notice the speed difference.
Sequential performance
I have always maintained that sequential
performance was every bit as important as small random file performance for a
desktop SSD. Some highly regarded people on other sites found this statement
quite funny a couple of years ago when I made it, but my, how times have
changed in the world of SSD reviewing.
To me this was always so obvious for a
desktop user. For example, let’s say you want to launch an application or game.
Both have some fairly large files to load, and also a great many small files,
but the point is, even the smaller files are sequential in nature. Now let’s
say you’re into audio or video editing. Video files tend to be huge, and the
files are written or read sequentially. Isn’t this how many users are using
their PCs these days?
Summary
So how does this shape up in the real
world? Which is better, massive 4K IOPS or massive sequential performance?
In an ideal world you want both, as an SSD
with massive random 4K IOPS and sequential performance will always be faster
than an SSD that has high sequential performance and moderate 4K random IOPS
performance, and the same applies to an SSD that has massive 4K random
performance and moderate sequential performance. The SSD which has high
performance in both patterns will always be the faster SSD.
However, you can still have an SSD that is
very fast for desktop use that has moderate random 4K performance and massive
sequential performance, the same can be said about a drive having massive
random 4K performance and moderate sequential performance, as it is about
getting the balance right if you have to compromise on one or the other.
Test drives
- 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD (firmware 1.5)
SSD - 500GB Samsung SpinPoint F3 (HD502HJ) HDD
- Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (Hybrid
drive) - OCZ Agility 120GB (firmware 1.5) SSD
- Intel X25-M 80GB (series G1) SSD
- OCZ Vertex 2 100GB SSD
- Plextor PX-256M2S SSD
- Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD
- OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
- Intel 510 series 120GB SSD
- Crucial M4 256GB SSD
- OCZ Octane 512GB SSD
- Intel 520 series 240GB SSD
Drive preparation for running the tests
All the SSDs used in this article were in a
clean and fresh state when the testing period started. From then on, each drive
had to rely on its own NAND cleaning effectiveness for the remainder of the
tests.
- Both our spinning HDD drives were
defragged before the start of each test.
- All SSD and HDD used in this article had
their partitions aligned to the Windows 7 x64 defaults.
Where I use graphs in this article to
display results, I will use the following colours to make it easier, for our
readers to see which drive we are reviewing.
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD
Comparison SSD
Comparison HDD
Now let's head to the next page, where I
look at some basic benchmarks...
Reading Benchmarks
HD Tune
HD Tune – Sequential reading test
I present the graph below for comparison
with other recently tested drives.
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD's performance was very
impressive with an average reading speed of 444.8 MB/s and this makes it the
fastest SSD with a Marvell controller.
ATTO disk benchmark
ATTO has become a standard tool for
measuring the data throughput of HDDs and SSDs. It measures the reading and
writing performance, using different file sizes and block sizes.
The first thing that we noticed is that
ATTO can easily verify the numbers that Plextor gives on their website. As we
can see the reading speed of the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD is very impressive, maximum
read speed is close to 540MB/s and writing speed topping close to 380MB/s. As
we can see the drive performs very well and it’s one of the fastest drives with
a Marvell SSD processor that we have tested.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Crystal Disk Mark is quite a handy
benchmarking application, as it focuses on the file sizes that can cause a
problem on a system drive.
As we can see in the above screenshots, the
Plextor PX-256M3 is performing almost identically for sequential read and write
speeds, but it also has very good performance in the rest of the tests that
Crystal Disk Mark performs.
AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD benchmark is a benchmarking tool
specifically designed to test SSDs. The application tests sequential reading
and writing performance, 4K random reading and writing performance.
AS SSD benchmark also tests 4K threaded
performance. This is very exciting, as this test is the first available test
that I am aware of, that simulates how a PC operating system actually works. A
modern PC and OS, such as Windows Vista/7 does not just run a single thread at
a time, it runs many threads. The AS SSD benchmark "4K 64Thrd" tests
run 64 threads simultaneously throughout the test. If this result is good, then
you can be pretty sure the drive will perform extremely well as a system drive.
After the tests complete, AS SSD benchmark
derives a total score for the drive being tested. This is based on all aspects
of the test results, and gives an indication of how the drive is performing
overall.
Now let’s look at the result for the Plextor
PX-256M3 SSD in the form of a screenshot. All our other comparison drives’
results are presented in the form of a graph.
Not much to say about the Plextor PX-256M3,
the drive simply dominates this test.
Summary:
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD has surprised us,
not only because it performed extremely well in our basic synthetic benchmarks,
but mainly because it was the first drive that was able to beat a SandForce drive.
The only thing that we can say is that Plextor did a very good job with the
selection of their components and their firmware.
We know that synthetic benchmarks don’t
lie, but they only show what an SSD can do technically when it’s pushed very
hard, and this can have very little relevance in a normal user's desktop PC,
which we will examine a little later in this article with real world tests.
Let's head to the next page for our
IOMeter test results.....
I/O Performance
There is little point of having an SSD
drive that has blazing sustained reading and writing speeds, if the drive can't
handle reading and writing of small random files. If you intend to use your new
SSD drive to store and run your operating system, then the drive must be able
to cope with the many small random files that Windows will write to the drive
continually. So I feel it is very important to test how many of these random
files that a drive can handle in one second. I believe that anything over 1,000
I/O’s per second would be enough for most users running a consumer grade
mainstream PC, and should provide a smooth running system. But obviously, the
more I/O's that a drive can handle, the faster the drive will feel and leave
more headroom for those huge multitasking sessions that users sometimes engage
in.
The things that I will look at are the
total I/O per second and total MB/s.
Partition alignment and sector boundaries
Windows 7 and Vista will automatically
align a partition to 4k boundaries during partition creation, Windows XP won’t.
It is imperative that an SSD’s partition is aligned. Windows XP is also
restricted to sector boundaries, while Windows 7 will use 4k boundaries if it
can. The Plextor PX-256M3 is 4k boundary aware, and will use these boundaries if
possible. Of course it will also remap LBAs for compatibility with the sector
boundaries so that the drive can be used with Windows XP.
IOMeter allows us to set the sector
boundaries for conducting the tests, and I have therefore set the sector
boundaries at 4K, which means the IOMeter tests are valid for Windows 7 and
Windows Vista users. XP users will not be able to obtain such results.
I will provide a screenshot of the tests on
the review drive for those of you who like to see the actual test result. All
the comparison drive results are represented in the form of graphs.
If any of you would like to see a screenshot
from any IOMeter test on a particular drive, please feel free to request one,
and I’ll post the screenshot in the forum thread.
All the IOMeter tests create a 10GB data
set on the target drive, and each test is run for a duration of 3 minutes.
IOMeter 4K random write test with repeating data.
The first test involves creating continual
4KB random files on the target drive with IOMeter. I use a 4KB file size, as it
is believed that Windows will create and modify many of this size of file
constantly in the background during a typical Windows session. It is said that
most 4K random writes take place at a queue depth of only one, and I have been requested
to include this test in my reviews.
Queue depth 1
Plextor PX256M3 256GB SSD – 4K random write (QD1)
At 57.836 MB/s the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD shows
very good performance.
Our next test involves creating continual
4KB random files on the target drive with IOMeter. I use a 4KB file size, as it
is believed that Windows will create and modify many of this size of file
constantly in the background during a typical Windows session. I will use queue
depths of 4 and 32 for these tests.
Queue depth 4
Plextor PX-256M3 GB SSD (Queue depth 4)
At a queue depth of 4, the Plextor PX-256M3
shows very strong performance.
Queue depth 32
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (Queue depth 32)
Again the Plextor PX-256M3 is showing some
very good results, not very far from the top SSD’s that we have tested so far.
IOMeter 4K random read test.
If there are many 4k files created, then
that must also mean that many 4k files need to be read. This test measures 4k
reading performance.
It is said that most 4K random reads take
place at a queue depth of only one, and readers have requested that I include
this test in my reviews.
Queue depth 1
Plextor PX-256M3 256B SSD (Queue depth 1)
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD easily leaves
behind the rest of the drives, and it’s the second fastest we have tested.
Overall the result is impressive.
Queue depth 4
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (Queue depth 4)
Again the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD is showing
impressive performance. It easily leaves behind the rest of the drives that we
have tested, and it’s the second fastest drive so far.
Queue depth 32
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (Queue depth 32)
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD simply dominates
this test with an impressive result that tops our chart at 301.89 MB/s.
IOMeter 512KB write test with repeating data.
Sequential writing performance is also very
important; in this test sequential writing performance is measured.
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD 512K Sequential write with repeating data
The Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD has again shown
a very impressive result and it finishes this test third with 372.81MB/s.
IOMeter 512KB write test with fully random data.
This test is exactly the same as the test
above except that the test data is fully random in nature. This test was
requested as SandForce based SSDs gain a lot of performance by being able to
compress data on the fly. While the above test shows the SandForce based SSDs
in a best case scenario, the following test will show the SandForce based SSDs
in a more realistic light. In the real world, the data is neither 100%
incompressible nor 100% compressible, it is somewhere in between. So please
keep this in mind.
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD – 512K sequential write with fully random data
As we can see the Plextor PX-256M3 shows an
excellent result with small uncompressible files.
IOMeter 512KB read test.
This test measures 512k sequential reading
performance.
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test
Again the Plextor PX-256M3 is amongst the
fastest drives when it come to sequential read.
IOMeter Workstation simulation (outstanding I/Os = 64).
When running applications you will find that
there is a mixture of small random files, and larger sequential files, being
created and read. Not only that, it isn’t just one file at a time. In this test
I measure a simulated workstation pattern, with a queue depth of 64 (threaded).
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD – Workstation simulation
Again the Plextor PX-256M3 is showing some
very impressive results and finishes this test in third place.
Summary
Overall, the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD has shown
very impressive results, especially when it comes to uncompressible data.
Now let’s head to the next page where we
will look at how the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD performs using a brand new
benchmarking application....
Anvil’s Storage Utilities
As well as performing SSD endurance tests.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities has a very nice SSD benchmarking application. The SSD
benchmark tests many different aspects of SSD performance, including 4K random
at different queue depths, and also sequential performance, but more importantly
than this, all using real test data.
Another very nice feature of Anvil’s SSD
benchmark is the fact that you can change the compression levels of the test
data. The compression levels of the data sets used for the tests can be varied
from 0% compression right up to 100% compressed data, and there are even a few
data profiles already included, such as database (8%) compression, and also an
application profile (46%) compression, which is designed to simulate real
application data being read and written to the SSD.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities is still in beta
at the moment, but the application is currently solid enough to use in this
article, and I have already verified the results obtained using an SATA
analyser.
I will include a screenshot of the review
drive, and all comparison results will be presented in the form of graphs. If
you would like to see screenshots of the test results obtained on the other
SSDs in this article, you can do so by following the link here.
I will also be testing three different
compression profiles, which are as follows.
- 0 fill (100% compressible data)
- Application simulation profile (46%
compressed) - 100% (non compressible data)
So let’s begin the tests.
0 fill
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (0 fill)
Total score
Writing score
Reading score
For the overall performance with 100%
compressible data the Plextor is somewhere in the middle, but the overall
performance is very good.
Application profile
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (application profile)
Total score
Writing score
Reading score
The Plextor PX-256M3 SSD shows a very
impressive result, it tops the write test and overall it is the second fastest
drive in the application benchmark.
100% incompressible
Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD (100% incompressible)
Total score
Writing score
Read score
The Plextor PX256M3 SSD is showing how well
it performs with uncompressible data. Overall an excellent result.
Summary
One should keep in mind that although
Anvil’s Storage Utilities SSD benchmark is a very good benchmark, and tests
many aspects of SSD performance, ultimately it is showing which SSD is
technically the fastest, and this may not be showing (for example) which drive
will be fastest in the real world with a home user's work pattern.
In most cases the Plextor PX256M3 SSD can
leave behind the rest of the tested SSDs, and it gets close to the OCZ Vertex
3, the performance of the drive is simply excellent.
Now let's head to the next page for some
real world tests....
It has become clear that simply conducting
endless benchmarks on SSD drives is pointless. Real users may run a few
benchmarks when they first fit their SSD drive, but most users just want a
drive that performs well in the real world. They want their drive to work
"out of the box" and work fast and smoothly.
Most of the latest SSD drives can deliver
very fast sustained reading and writing speeds, but these alone tell you very
little about how the drive will perform in the real world.
If you intend to use your SSD as your
primary system drive, with an operating system and applications installed and
running from the drive, real world performance becomes much more important than
just fast sequential read and write speeds.
Real world copy tests
I will now conduct a few real world copy
tests. These tests simulate what real people do with their drives. I will be
conducting writing tests, using a large single file and a multiple file copy of
various file sizes. Then I will round off the tests by copying a folder of MP3
audio files, and also a folder of JPG pictures.
I should point out that this is not a
scientific way of measuring performance. These timings were taken with a stop watch;
I have however ensured that the reading drive is well able to supply a data
stream to our writing drive, which is high enough not to be slowing down the
performance of the writing drive.
I will once again be comparing the obtained
results with our comparison drives, and will present the results in the form of
graphs.
Copy Tests
These tests are to simulate a single drive
in a PC or laptop. In other words, I will copy a series of files from the
Crucial M4 256GB SSD to the tested drive.
Copy tests – 259 MP3 song files (1.36GB total)
The Plextor PX-256M3 is showing the same
performance as the Crucial M4, and it can only be described as impressive.
Copy tests – 3,377 JPEG picture files (2.56GB total)
Once again the performance of the Plextor
PX-256M3 SSD is impressive.
Windows start-up and closedown
For these tests, I simply used a stop watch
and tested the amount of time taken for a full installation of Windows 7 to
boot to the desktop, and then timed how long it took for Windows 7 to close
down by the normal start menu method.
The timing was started once the BIOS had
initialised and reached the “loading OS message”.
Windows 7 boot time
Windows 7 closedown
The differences in startup and shutdown
times are very small, and you will probably not notice any difference in real
life. Overall the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD is very close to its rivals.
Installing applications
Installing applications is possibly
something you don't do that often. But should you replace your system disk,
then you will most likely have to re-install your applications. Most of the SSD
drives I have tested up until now are quite slow at installing applications,
most likely because their I/O performance was quite limited.
For these tests, we picked some popular
applications and copied the entire contents of the CD or DVD media to an Crucial
M4 256GB SSD. We did this to make sure that the reading speed of our CD/DVD
reader would not hamper the performance of the target drive.
We then installed these applications onto
our comparison HDD drives, which were all running mirror image installations of
our Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit installation, and timed the amount of time
taken to install the application with a stopwatch on each of the drives.
MS Office 2007 Enterprise edition (full install)
MS Office is one of those applications that
make you cringe at the thought of re-installing it.
Now let’s see
how the Plextor PX-256M3 SSD performs with the installation of MS Office 2007
Enterprise Edition.
The procedure
followed was very simple, I copied all the files from the CD to the crucial M4
SSD and the Crucial M4 was used as a source drive for the installation of MS
Office 2007
Speed degradation after heavy testing
On this page I will test how the SSD
performs after heavy testing and usage.
I now have a new policy as to how I go
about testing an SSD. In the past I would deliberately try and get an SSD into
a “used state”, by filling the drive several times before starting the tests.
This seemed to work quite well up until the SandForce based SSDs appeared, but
because of the way the SandForce controller works, it was near impossible to
tell if deliberately trying to get a SandForce based SSD into a “used state”
had actually worked or not.
A new strategy was required. So now I begin
the tests with the SSD in a clean state and allow it to look after itself
during the testing period. I start off the tests by running AS SSD benchmark.
This gives me the “as new” reading and writing performance of the SSD.
Once all the tests have been completed, the
drive is then tested as a system drive, and just used normally for many days
which will also includes idle time (which is something I have always done with
a review sample). At the end of the period, the drive is filled to capacity and
then all files are deleted from the drive and then a “quick format” is
performed.
The last test is a rerun of AS SSD
benchmark, and the result from the final test is compared with the first run
when the SSD was in an “as new” state.
New state 10/03/2012
Used state 21/03/2012
After 21 days of use we can see that
Plextor’s True Speed is doing a very good job at keeping the drives
performance, the total score in AS SSD is even slightly higher at the end of
our test. Overall you won’t notice any difference with daily use.
This concludes our review. To read the final
thoughts and conclusion, click the link below....
Final thoughts and the conclusion
User experience and stability
Well after twenty one days of daily use I
can clearly say that I am very impressed. Everything is working as you would expect
and in some cases Plextor is spoiling us. Multitasking is easy for the Plextor
PX-256M3 SSD mainly because of the pure speed that the drive has to offer, and
secondly and maybe more importantly, the work that Plextor has done with the
firmware of the drive. The fact of the matter is this.
If we look at the 3 basic requirements for
a fast SSD, they are as follows.
- Small file threaded performance needs to
be high - Small random file performance needs to be
high - Sequential read and write speeds needs to
be high
The Plextor PX-256M3 256GB SSD has all of
the above attributes along with the Plextor's True Speed which will be able to
keep the performance at the top.
Conclusion:
Let us summarise the most important positive
and negative points below:
Positive:
- Smooth operation as a system drive.
- Excellent sequential reading and very
good writing performance. - Very good 4K random I/O performance at
low queue depths. - SATA 6Gbps support.
- Plextor’s True Speed.
- TRIM support under Windows 7.
- Lightning fast access times.
- Fast operating system start-up and
shutdown times. - 5 year warranty, including the famous 3
year Plextor Collect and Return warranty. - Price for what the drive offers.
Negative:
- None.
To sum up, this is
what I would say:
Closing this review we have only good
things to say, starting with the performance of the PX-256M3 SSD, the excellent
built quality, and the fact that the drive was not only able to keep up with
drives that are priced higher but in some tests it was able to overtake them.
Plextor is willing to give this drive a
five year warranty, and that shows how much faith Plextor has in the PX-256M3
SSD.
The parting sentence is
“The Plextor PX-256M3 is an excellent SSD.
It has excellent performance and it comes with a 5 year warranty. You can't ask
for much more from a modern SSD”.
You may comment on this review below.
Thanks to:
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EFD |
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Alex Schepeljanski for |
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