The M.2 2280 version of the M8Se comes packaged in an eye catching blue box. The front advertises key features like the drive's 512GB capacity, support for NVMe and Plextor's PlexNitro, True Speed and True Protect technologies. The back of the box provides a bit more information regarding the M8Se's specifications and features.
Inside the box, you'll find a clamshell case containing the M8Se and a small mounting screw. I was a bit surprised to see that Plextor did not include any documentation with the drive.
Physical Features:
The M8Se uses the 2280 form factor for M.2 (NGFF) SSDs. It measures 80 x 22 x 2.3 mm and tips the scales at a mere 10g. The drive also has an "M key" edge connector which provides PCIe SSDs with up to 4x lanes of bandwidth.
Like the M8Pe, the M8Se uses Marvell's 88SS1093 controller. This 8 channel, PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD controller is equipped with three ARM Cortex R5 cores and features support for 15nm TLC/MLC/SLC and 3D NAND. The 88SS1093 also integrates Marvell’s third generation NANDEdge error-correcting, low-density parity check (LDPC) technology for higher reliability and endurance.
For the 512GB version of the M8Se, Plextor used Toshiba's 15nm "Super High Performance" TLC NAND flash. Looking at the pictures above, you can see that there are two 256GB NAND flash packages on the top of the PCB. The drive also has a single NANYA 1GB LPDDR3 DRAM memory chip that is used for caching.
