Introducing the M6 Series
The new Plextor M6S is targeted at mainstream users and uses Marvell's 88SS9188 controller and the latest 19nm NAND from Toshiba.
For bargain lovers and value hunters, 2014 started with a bang as far as SSDs are concerned. Since the start of the year, we have reviewed no fewer than five new mainstream SSDs - the ADATA Premier Pro SP920SS, Crucial M500, Crucial M550, OCZ Vertex 460 and the Samsung SSD 840 EVO.
And earlier this year at CeBIT 2014, Plextor debuted its new M6 series of SSDs, which includes the Plextor M6S (the drive we are looking at today), the mSATA M6M and the PCIe-based M6e.
The Plextor M6S is the successor to the older M5S and is targeted at the mainstream market. Inside, users will find a Marvell 88SS9188 controller. This new controller is actually a pared down version of the 88SS9187 controller that is found in drives like the Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme and SanDisk Xtreme II. As a result, it gets only four memory channels as opposed to eight. This is actually ideal for mainstream SSDs as this not only reduces power consumption, but it also means that the controller is more well suited for using more cost effective high-density NAND packages since it only has four channels anyway. We talked about NAND parallelism in our review of the ADATA Premier Pro SP920SS and Crucial M550, well worth a read if you have trouble understanding why a controller with lesser memory channels is better suited for higher density NAND packages. Additionally, the new 88SS9188 controller is better optimized for DevSleep, which helps bring down power consumption especially when the system is in idle.
The new M6S is thinner at 7mm, making it more suitable for thin notebooks.
Moving on, the Plextor M6S also uses Toshiba’s new 19nm Toggle-Mode MLC NAND - a tried-and-test combination considering how fast the Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme is - and supports the latest SATA 6Gbps interface. Sadly, the Plextor M6S does not come with any accessories or cloning utility.
Of course, Plextor is favored by enthusiasts mostly for its stringent quality checks and the pre-production units of M6S drives are all put through a grueling 576 hours test before they can be approved for retail. Part of these tests include putting the drives through a 48 hour 4k read and write cycle to ensure there are no BSODs, black screens or freezes. Plextor also puts the drives through 24 hours of sequential reads and writes and then tests their ability to recover from hibernation for up to 4000 times. The drives are also put on a cold and warm boot cycle for 250 times.
Test Setup
The drives will be tested on our recently revamped storage testbed. The main changes are the faster Core i5-2500K processor and an accompanying Z77 motherboard which has native Thunderbolt connectivity.
- Intel Core i5-2500K (3.3GHz)
- ASUS P8Z77 Pro Thunderbolt (Intel Z77 chipset)
- 2 x 2GB DDR3-1600 memory
- MSI GeForce 8600 GTS
- Windows 7
We have also revised our benchmarks, ditching older benchmarks such as HD Tune and also including an all new timing test to better evaluate the drive’s real world performance.
The list of benchmarks used are as follows:
- AS-SSD benchmark 1.7.4739
- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1
- PCMark 7 (Storage suite)
- Iometer (version 2006.07.27)
- Timing Tests (Cold start, Reboot, Apps Launching)
To evaluate the Plextor M6S, we will be looking closely at how it performs against the model it replaces - the Plextor M5S. In addition, we are interested to see how it performs against the top mainstream SSDs that are currently in the market, namely the Crucial M550, the OCZ Vertex 460 and the Samsung SSD 840 EVO.
Timing Test
Recently added to our evaluation of SSDs is how they perform in real world everyday situations, namely booting up from a cold start, reboot and launching applications. As for the applications used, we made the drives launch 11 applications from the Adobe CS6 suite of utilities simultaneously, which includes resource intensive applications such as Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro amongst others. As a point of reference, a 7200rpm mechanical hard disk would take over 5 minutes to open all the applications.
Compared to its predecessor, the new Plextor M6S recorded significant improvements with regards to booting up from a cold start and a reboot. The time it took to launch the entire suite of Adobe CS6 applications was roughly the same. That said, we noticed that it was slower than the Crucial M550 and also the OCZ Vertex 460, and that it was even slower still when compared to Plextor’s range-topping Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme and the Samsung SSD 840 Pro.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 Results
CrystalDiskMark is an easy-to-run and quick utility to use to gauge a drive’s performance. It measures sequential read and write performance and random read and write speeds of random 4KB, 4KB (queue depth 32) and 512KB data.
The Plextor M6S recorded much improved results over the older Plextor M5S. Write performance, in particular, is considerably better. Read and write speeds on the intensive 4k, 32 queue depth work load was significantly faster too by around 20% overall. That said, the recently reviewed Crucial M550 was just slightly quicker, as were the OCZ Vertex 460 and Samsung SSD 840 EVO.
AS SSD 1.7.4739 Results
AS SSD is a benchmark that uses non-compressible and completely random data. What this means is that the drives using controllers such as the SandForce SF-2281 cannot compress the data first, which takes away one of their strong advantages and help us score it more evenly against other drives.
On AS SSD, we noticed a similar pattern when comparing the results of the Plextor M6S against its predecessor. Overall, write performance saw the biggest improvement, but performance on the intensive 4k, 64 queue depth was also much improved too and deserves to be highlighted. On the 4k, 64-thread queue depth workload, read performance was up a whopping 44% while write performance saw an increase of around 13%.
Against the other mainstream SSDs, the Crucial M550 and OCZ Vertex 460 were slightly quicker. The Samsung SSD 840 EVO was competitive up until the 4k, 64-thread queue depth workload which was its Achilles heel, presumably due to its TurboWrite cache expiring.
PCMark 7 Results
PCMark 7 is a benchmarking suite from FutureMark that evaluates the performance of Windows 7 machines. It tests a wide range workloads and aspects of the system ranging from computation, image and video manipulation and storage. We’ll be looking solely at the storage test here.
On PCMark 7, the Plextor M6S recorded a respectable score of 5447, which is a 2% improvement over the old M5S. Looking at the breakdown of the score, we can see that the new Plextor M6S, is quicker than the M5S in every scenario. The Plextor M6S' score is also slightly higher than that of the Crucial M550 and OCZ Vertex 460, and loses out only marginally to the Samsung SSD 840 EVO and even the high-end Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme. The Samsung SSD 840 Pro is the undisputed champion on this benchmark.
Iometer Results (Part 1)
Lastly, we put the drives through the rigorous grind of Iometer, with different workloads and I/O queue depths. We have chosen to show results from a queue depth of 1 to 5 as this better represents the workloads a typical consumer might face.
On Iometer, the Plextor M6S clearly offers improved read and write performance over the Plextor M5S. Overall, the new Plextor M6S’ performance on Iometer was encouraging, though not absolutely stellar, especially since its performance on the Web Server workload was below average. That said, it recorded the second highest IOPs on the File Server workload, which is impressive.
Iometer Results (Part 2)
Finally, we look at the I/O response times for the workloads reported on the previous page. Generally, the average response time of the Plextor M6S is good, especially on the 64k Streaming Reads and File Server work loads. Response times for the Web Server workload was on the slow side, especially at higher queue depths.
Priced to Win
As we have mentioned at the beginning of this review, 2014 is looking to be a bumper year for mainstream SSDs. Crucial already has the M500 and M550, while ADATA, OCZ and Samsung are joining the fray with the Premier Pro SP920SS, Vertex 460 and SSD 840 EVO respectively.
The Plextor M6S is the new player to join this mainstream royal rumble and it is a commendable effort from the Japanese SSD manufacturer. This new drive offers much improved performance over its predecessor - the M5S - and is capable of rubbing shoulders with the best mainstream SSDs that are in the market today - drives like the Crucial M550, OCZ Vertex 460 and Samsung SSD 840 EVO.
In terms of performance, the Crucial, OCZ and Samsung drives have the slight upper hand on CrystalDiskMark, AS SSD and our Timing Tests. However, the Plextor M6S fights back with a strong showing on PCMark 7 and Iometer - Plextor drives have traditionally performed well on Iometer. All things considered, there is little to separate the Plextor M6S from its competitors.
The Plextor M6S is attractively priced and offers competitive performance.
As for value, the Plextor M6S is attractively priced at S$229, which makes it slightly cheaper than all of its competitors. What's more, it is also the only drive in the mainstream category to offer five-year warranty - its competitors have only 3-year warranties. The next closest competitor is the Crucial M550, which costs $240. While it may be “only” S$11 more, in this segment of the market where most consumers are trying to eke out the most bang for buck, every dollar counts.
The OCZ Vertex 460 and Samsung SSD 840 EVO are more costly options at S$257 and S$249 respectively. However, for that extra money, you do get in-house developed controllers that are exclusive to the brand. Furthermore, now that OCZ is owned by Toshiba (which has its own NAND foundry) and that Samsung has always been producing its own NAND, the two brands also have access to the best memory.
All in all, the Plextor M6S is a welcomed new entry to mainstream SSD market and it is an extremely attractive alternative to the Crucial M550, OCZ Vertex 460 and Samsung SSD 840 EVO. It provides competitive performance at the lowest price, and with a combination like that, it is very hard to say no.
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