Anvil's Storage Utilities:
Anvil's Storage Utilities is another new benchmark designed with SSDs in mind. The standard storage benchmark measures a drive's performance by testing its transfer speeds, access times and IOPS.
Plextor PX-256M5P Xtreme (1.02)
Plextor PX-256M5P (1.01)
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-256M5P'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-256M5P's sequential read and write speeds were slightly lower with the Xtreme firmware. In our tests, the drive was able to read at 521.58 MB/s and write at 438.87 MB/s.
At low queue depths, the Xtreme firmware had very little impact on the PX-256M5P's random and write speeds. It's not until you increase the queue depth that you see any real performance gains.
With the Xtreme firmware, the PX-256M5P is capable of 100,000 IOPS when reading and 86,000 IOPS when writing 4K blocks. In our tests, the drive reached 40,899 random read IOPS and 67,229 random write IOPS. As with the original firmware, the only way I came close to Plextor's numbers was to increase the queue depth. With the queue depth set to 32, the PX-235M5P reached 98,432 random read IOPS and 82,332 random write IOPS.
Final Thoughts:
The M5 Pro has been a big success for Plextor, and with the Xtreme firmware, the company is looking to continue this momentum into 2013. The big question is, does this free firmware update live up to the hype? Does it really take the M5 Pro's performance to the "extreme"? The answer is yes and no. Those with the 256GB and 512GB versions of the M5 Pro will definitely welcome the Xtreme's increased sequential write speeds. When we first looked at the M5 Pro, its 450 MB/s write speed put it at a disadvantage in some of our tests. The Xtreme firmware reduces the performance gap somewhat. However, Plextor still has a way to go before the M5 Pro's sequential write speeds are on par with the latest offerings from OCZ and Samsung.
And then you have the Xtreme's highly touted 100K random read IOPS. As impressive as this number is, the M5 Pro reaches it only at very high queue depths. This is great if you're going to use the drive in a database or web server but the average consumer isn't going to come close to this number during everyday use. It would have been better if Plextor had optimized the M5 Pro's random read and write performance at lower queue depths, but let's be honest here, the higher number looks more impressive and helps sell more drives.
Judging by comments made by Plextor on their Facebook page, the company is planning to sell an updated version of the M5 Pro as the M5 Pro Xtreme. The drive will ship in revised packaging and come with the 1.02 firmware. It will also be based on entirely new PCB (M6S-TSOP REV:01) which, going by the name, it will share with the M6 Series SSD. The M5 Pro Xtreme still uses Toshiba's 19nm Toggle Mode NAND. However, instead of it being Type A MLC in a BGA package, it will be Type C MLC in a TSOP package. How does this all affect performance? We really won't know until the M5 Pro Xtreme ships and we can run some tests to see how it stacks up against the original M5 Pro with the upgraded Xtreme firmware.
The M5 Pro is available now in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities. Prices on Amazon currently range from $108 up to $440, with the PX-256M5P featured here going for about $200.
