The test system used in this review is equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700K CPU, GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD3 motherboard, 32GB (16GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory, Samsung 960 PRO 512GB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Enterprise.
To test the performance of Plextor's M9PG Plus SSD, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach RW, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro, Anvil's Storage Utilities, Iometer and PCMark 8. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Plextor M9PY Plus, ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro, Western Digital WD Black SN750, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro, Crucial P1, ADATA XPG SX8200, Western Digital WD Black NVMe, Samsung 970 EVO, Samsung 970 PRO, Plextor M9Pe, Plextor M8Se, Patriot Hellfire, ADATA XPG SX8000, Samsung 960 PRO, Toshiba OCZ RD400, Samsung 950 PRO, Samsung 860 QVO, Samsung 860 PRO, Crucial MX500, Plextor M8V, Samsung T5, Crucial BX300, ADATA Ultimate SU900, Plextor S3C, Toshiba OCZ VX500 and ADATA Ultimate SU800.
As I mentioned earlier, the M9PG Plus is based on Marvell's 88SS1092 controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.2:
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 M9PG Plus 1TB |
 WD Black SN750 with Heatsink 1TB |
According to Plextor, the 1TB version of the M9PG Plus is capable of reading at 3,400 MB/s and writing at 2,200 MB/s. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive had no problems reaching its rated read speed, it came up a bit short in CrystalDiskMark's sequential write speed test.
 Plextor M9PG Plus 1TB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 WD Black SN750 with Heatsink 1TB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The M9PG Plus performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 3,465 MB/s and write at 2,116 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the M9PG Plus' read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the M9PG Plus had average read and write speeds of 1,392.1 MB/s and 602.4 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst speed of 891.6 MB/s. The screenshot also shows that, like most other TLC-based SSDs, the M9PG Plus uses some sort of SLC caching. The drive starts writing at about 1,300 MB/s and then drops to about 650 MB/s when the write operation exceeds the size of the cache.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the M9PG Plus' 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 M9PG Plus 1TB |
 WD Black SN750 with Heatsink 1TB |
When tested with ATTO, the M9PG Plus' read speeds topped out at about 3,347 MB/s and its write speeds at 2,135 MB/s.
