Plextor S2C 256GB Solid State Drive

Model: Plextor S2C 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 nearly twenty years, 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 an assortment of high-performance DVD and Blu-ray drives, the company offers a growing number of solid state drives.

This fall, Plextor launched its latest 2.5-inch SATA SSD, the S2C. Targeted towards first time upgraders and do-it-yourselfers, this successor to the M7V is powered by SMI's SM2258 controller and is available with up to 512GB of SK Hynix's 16nm TLC NAND flash. To compensate for the slow write speeds typically associated with TLC NAND, the S2C is equipped with Plextor's PlexNitro cache acceleration technology, which optimizes performance without taking up any space on the drive. The S2C also has many of the same features found on Plextor's higher end SSDs. In addition to the company's PlexTurbo intelligent RAM caching solution, the drive offers support for its PlexCompressor and PlexVault technologies.

The S2C is available in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities. For this review, Plextor sent us the 256GB version of the drive which is capable of delivering up to 520 MB/s sequential read and 480 MB/s sequential write speeds as well as up to 98,000 random read and 72,000 random write IOPS.

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the S2C has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at Plextor's new SSD and then see how well it performs. Does the S2C have what it takes? More importantly, is it the best bang for your buck? Keep reading as we find out.