The M.2 2280 version of the M9Pe comes packaged in an eye catching black and rainbow colored box. In addition to a small, plastic window which lets you see what the drive looks like, the front advertises key features like its 256GB capacity, support for NVMe, advanced heat sink design and 5 year warranty. The back of the box provides a bit more information regarding the M9Pe's specifications and features.
Inside the box, you'll find a clamshell case containing the MPSe 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 M9Pe uses the 2280 form factor for M.2 (NGFF) SSDs. It measures 80.00 x 22.80 x 4.70 mm and tips the scales at a mere 13g. The drive also has an "M key" edge connector which provides PCIe SSDs with up to 4x lanes of bandwidth.
To help dissipate heat, the top of the M9Pe is covered by a heatsink. This heatsink's design is similar to the one found on the M8Se. However, this time around it is red and black.
Like the M8Pe and M8Se, the M9Pe 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 256GB version of the M9Pe, Plextor used Toshiba's new 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND flash. Looking at the pictures above, you can see that there are two 128GB NAND flash packages on the top of the PCB. The drive also has a single NANYA 512MB LPDDR3 DRAM memory chip that is used for caching.
