Product Listing

Plextor M5 Pro SSD (256GB) - Marvelous Marvell?

By Kenny Yeo - 14 Sep 2012

Conclusion

Not so Marvell-ous

Like the OCZ Vertex 4, the Plextor M5 Pro is an interesting addition to the current crop of high-performance consumer-grade SSDs. While most manufacturers are using the very popular SandForce SF-2281 controller, the Plextor M5 Pro breaks the mold by utilizing the latest Marvell 88SS9187 controller.

In terms of performance, the Plextor M5 Pro performs very similarly to the OCZ Vertex 4. What this means is that generally, its read performance was found to be below that of what the SandForce drives are capable of. Also, performance on the two Futuremark benchmarks - PCMark Vantage and PCMark 7 - and HD Tune were erratic. Although we’ve noticed this with just about every Marvell drive we’ve tested, we found that the older Marvell-powered Plextor M2S was able to complete these benchmarks without a hitch. Hence, we we speculate that this is an issue that is related more to the firmware than the controller.

Very pricey and perhaps still a little raw, the Plextor M5 Pro shines in some areas but needs further refinement if it is to realize its potential; it could easily have been the fastest SSD in our lab to-date if not for its erratic performance.

That said, on benchmarks where the M5 Pro ran smoothly such as AS SSD, CrystalDiskMark and Iometer, the drive proved to be a capable performer. On AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark, the M5 Pro was one of the top performing drives, posting very credible read speeds and write speeds that surpassed all the SandForce drives. On Iometer, it recorded very high IOPs too, especially on the File and Web Server workloads. On a whole, we also noticed that it had very good write performance and would probably suit strenuous usage needs very well, especially if your typical usage requires more writing than reading to the drive,.

As we’ve highlighted numerous times before, early SandForce drives were plagued by reliability issues and although much of it has been rectified with firmware updates from their respective manufacturers, there are still reports of drives that are suffering from random occurrences of BSODs. Hence, for those who are cautious and skeptical of SandForce drives, the Marvell-powered Plextor M5 Pro is a viable alternative.

Retailing for US$264, the Plextor M5 Pro is a pricey drive. Especially so when you consider that the equivalently fast OCZ Vertex 4 is much more affordable at US$199 and the better performing SandForce drives such as the Intel SDD 520 Series and Transcend SSD 720 are going for US$237 and US$214 respectively.

So is it worth the extra? Well, if performance on Iometer, AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark is anything to by, than maybe yes. Why maybe? Because the Plextor M5 Pro an drive of extremes. It certainly shows potential, but to realize it would require Plextor to rework the firmware to fully optimize the drive. However, if Plextor is able to do so, then the M5 Pro could possibly be the fastest SSD yet.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
7.5
  • Performance 8
  • Features 6.5
  • Value 7
The Good
Very good Iometer performance
Overall performance shows lots of promise
The Bad
Erratic performance on Futuremark benchmarks and HD Tune
Firmware is troublesome to update
Firmware needs optimizing
Very pricey
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.