Model: Plextor PX-256M5P 256GB Solid State Drive
Manufacturer: Plextor
Provided By: Plextor LLC
As one of the biggest names in the storage industry, Plextor doesn't need much of an introduction. For more than a decade, they've produced some of the best optical drives the industry has seen. Known the world over for their quality, performance, and features, these drives have become favorites among consumers and professionals alike. Today, Plextor continues to lead the way by bringing cutting edge storage technologies to market. Along with a vast assortment of high-performance DVD and Blu-ray drives, the company offers NAS devices, external hard drives and a growing number of solid state drives.
Like many other manufacturers, Plextor has set its sights on the growing solid-state drive (SSD) market. This fall, the company launched its M5 Pro Series SSD. Powered by Plextor's new True Speed technology, this new, ultra-slim SSDe leverages high quality components like Marvell's 88SS9187 "Monet" controller chip and 19nm Toggle Mode NAND to deliver up to 540MB/s read and 450MB/s write speeds as well as a maximum of 86,000 4KB random write IOPS.
In addition to True Speed, the M5 Pro is the first SSD to feature Plextor's new True Protect technology. Using the 128-bit error correction code (ECC) built into the Marvell 88SS9187 controller, this unique data protection system is able to automatically check and correct the accuracy of data being read from the flash memory. This is backed by the robust data hold-out algorithm in Plextor’s exclusive firmware which ensures that data can be read with extremely high accuracy, even in the long-term. When data confidentiality is required, the M5 Pro uses hardware in the AES-validated Marvell controller to provide secure 256-bit full-drive encryption.
When I reviewed the M5 Pro back in September, I was very impressed by its great, all around performance as well as the technologies it brought to the table. Needless to say, when I went to purchase an SSD for my new desktop I chose the PX-256M5P. Before installing the drive in my computer though, I took it, and the one Plextor sent us for our review and ran some tests to see how well they performed in a RAID array. The results were so impressive that I had to share them with everyone. Read on to see what you can expect from a pair of PX-256M5P SSDs in an Ivy Bridge-based PC.
