The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the Plextor PX-256M6S, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro 4.61, Anvil's Storage Utilities and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Toshiba Q Series Pro, Plextor PX-256M6M, Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA, OCZ Vector 150, OCZ Vertex 450, Silicon Power Slim S55, Samsung SSD 840 EVO, Seagate 600 SSD, SanDisk Extreme II, Plextor PX-256M5M, OCZ Vector, Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme, Samsung SSD 840 Pro, Samsung SSD 840, Kingston Ultra Plus, OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Agility 4 and Kingston HyperX 3K.
Like the M6M, the M5S is based on Marvel's 88SS9188 controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 Plextor PX-256M6S |
 Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme |
According to Plextor, the PX-256M6S is capable of reading at 520 MB/s and writing at 420 MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. While the drive performed better than expected when writing, it came up a bit short in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read speed test.
 Plextor PX-256M6S - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The PX-256M6S performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 498.5 MB/s and write at 432.2 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the PX-256M6S's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the PX-256M6S had average read and write speeds of 416.6 MB/s and 362.4 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 404.0 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PX-256M6S's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 Plextor PX-256M6S |
 Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme |
When tested with ATTO, the PX-256M6S's read speeds topped out at about 523 MB/s and its write speeds at 450 MB/s.
