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The latest addition to Plextor's range of SSDs is the M8P line of drives. The M8P family is the company's first SSD range to use NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory) architecture and comes in two formats – an HHHL add-in card for motherboards without an M.2 slot and a 2280 M.2 drive, both using a PCI-e Gen3 x4 interface.
The HHHL (Half-Height/Half Length) drive is the M8Pe(Y) while the M.2 drive comes in two versions, the M8PeGN and the M8Pe(G) which we are reviewing. The difference between the two M.2 drives is that the M8Pe(G) comes with a fancy heatsink and the M8PeGN doesn't. Both formats of the drive have the same capacities; 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and the flagship 1TB model.
Plextor quote performance figures for the 512GB drive of up to 2,300MB/s for Sequential reads and up to 1,300MB/s for writes. Random 4K IOPS performance is listed as up to 260,000 IOPS for reads and up to 250,000 for writes.
The drive comes with Plextor's TrueSpeed and TrueProtect technologies. TrueSpeed technology is an exclusive firmware feature that brings together several Plextor technologies to ensure long-term SSD performance at like-new speeds, preventing drops in read/write speeds after periods of use and when the SSD is nearly full.
TrueProtect combines Plextor's real-time debugging technology together with ECC 128-bit error correction and Flash self-testing to ensure that data remains error free. Added to these technologies is the 3rd generation LDPC technology provided by the Marvell 88SS1093 controller which aids the drive's reliability.
The official Plextor figure for the 512GB drive's endurance is 768TBW which works out at around 420.8GB host writes a day for the length of the 5-year warranty that Plextor back the drive with.
Physical Specifications:
Usable Capacities: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB
NAND Components: Toshiba 15nm Toggle MLC
Interface: PCI-e (NVMe)
Form Factor: M.2 (2280)
NAND Controller: Marvell 88SS1093
Dimensions: 80 x 22.85 x 4.79mm
Drive Weight: 13g
Firmware Version. 1.01
“AS SSD is another test where the M8Pe(G) scores highly. It’s interesting to contrast the drive with the last PCIe interfaced Plextor drive we looked at – the M6e Black Edition. It’s a sign of how far SSD technology has progressed in the year since the M6e was launched that its performance is totally eclipsed by the M8Pe(G).”
The M6e is limited to pcie 2.0×2 lanes, so comparing that to the m8pe which is pcie 3.0×4 is apples and oranges…you can’t really determine if the performance jump is due to more lanes, better nand, a better controller or all of them.
it’s easy to get here in the U.S., and it’s the cheapest of the high performance pcie 3.0×4 m.2 drives with the 512GB m.2 version, like in the review, going for $239 USD(€218/£197) on newegg
Thanks for pointing that out. I have updated the “hard to find” comment to point out that it is in reference to the UK market, at the time of writing.
Just a quick question. Do those SSDs need UEFI bios to work or they will work properly even with motherboards having legacy BIOS? Thanks in advance!