AS SSD:
AS SSD is a relatively new benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive.
AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.
HD Tune Pro 4.61:
Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I'm also going to use it to benchmark the PX-256M3S's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.
 Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Read Benchmark |
 Patriot Pyro SE 240GB - HD Tune Read Benchmark |
 Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Write Benchmark |
 Patriot Pyro SE 240GB - HD Tune Write Benchmark |
The PX-256M3S performed fairly well when benchmarked with HD Tune. The drive had average read and write speeds of 493.6 MB/s and 330.1 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst rate of 321 MB/s.
 Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Random Access Read |
 Patriot Pyro SE 240GB - HD Tune Random Access Read |
 Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Random Access Write |
 Patriot Pyro SE 240GB - HD Tune Random Access Write |
The PX-256M3S didn't perform as well as the Pyro SE when doing random reads and writes. Nevertheless, when writing 4KB blocks, the drive reached 13269 IOPS and had an average speed of 51.833 MB/s.
Iometer:
Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the PX-256M3S's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.
The PX-256M3S's performance was very similar to what we saw in our other tests. With an average read of 484.15 MB/s, Plextor's new drive was slightly faster than the PX-256M2P when reading. However, when it came to writing, the PX-256M3S was more than 70 MB/s slower than its sibling.
The PX-256M3S performed surprisingly well when doing random reads and writes. In our tests, the drive was able to write at 208.43 MB/s and read at a blazing 131.51 MB/s. This wasn't enough to top the SandForce-based drives when doing random writes with highly compressible, repeating data. However, the PX-256M3S was about 28 MB/s faster than the Patriot Pyro SE when writing random data.
According to Plextor, the PX-256M3S is capable of 70,000 IOPS when reading and 65,000 IOPS when writing 4K blocks. In our tests, the drive reached 33,665 random read IOPS and 53,358 random write IOPS. The only way I was able to match Plextor's numbers was to increase the queue depth. With the queue depth set to 32, the PX-235M3S reached 71,606 random read IOPS and 66,335 random write IOPS.
