Plextor announces new M8Pe PCIe SSD and EX1 external SSD at Computex 2016
Plextor announces new M8Pe PCIe SSD and EX1 external SSD at Computex 2016
PCIe SSDs are all the rage at this year’s Computex and Plextor has got a new PCIe SSD that’s raring to go.
The older Plextor M6e Black Edition SSD was a curious drive in that it only supported the PCIe 2.0 x2 interface. In other words, it could not hope to match the speeds of SSDs which supported the wider PCIe 3.0 x4 interface.
So new for 2016 is the Plextor M8Pe. This new drive supports PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and also the new NVMe protocol that was developed specially for SSDs.
The MP8e will use Marvell’s newest 88SS1093 controller and Toshiba’s newest 15nm MLC NAND. Additionally, the MP8e will be offered as a HHHL PCIe add-in card, and in the small, compact M.2 2280 form factor.
Plextor claims that the 1TB model will be able to achieve sequential read and write speeds of 2500MB/s and 1400MB/s respectively. Whereas random 4K read and write performance is said to be in the region of 280,000 IOPS and 240,000 IOPS, which is seriously quick.
Available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities, the MP8e will be coming to our shores soon in the coming months. Prices have yet to be determined.
Along with the MP8e, Plextor has also announced a new external SSD called the EX1. It’s small, about the size of a regular USB flash drive, and features a nice brushed aluminum exterior.
Powered by a Via Labs VL716 controller, the EX1 external SSD will be available in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities, the EX1 will support the new USB Type-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1) interface. This means it will support transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps, and will also mean that it will have performance that will rival that of SATA-based SSDs.
Local availability and pricing have yet to be determined as well, but we will update this news once we have more details.
Finally, Plextor also told us that going forward, all of their performance-oriented SSDs will only support the PCIe interface. However, their entry-level and value SSDs will still support SATA 6Gbps.