The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the Plextor PX-256M5P, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro 4.61, Anvil's Storage Utilities and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Kingston HyperX 3K, OCZ Vertex 3 3.5", Plextor PX-256M3P, SanDisk Extreme, Samsung 830 SSD, Plextor PX-256M3S and Patriot Pyro SE.
The M5 Pro is the first drive based on Marvel's new 88SS9174 controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that, unlike SandForce controllers, it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1:
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 PX-256M5P |
 OCZ Vertex 4 256GB |
According to Plextor, the PX-256M5P is capable of reading at 540 MB/s and writing at 450 MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port While the drive performed well, it came up a bit short of these numbers in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.
 Plextor PX-256M5P - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 OCZ Vertex 4 256GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The PX-256M5P performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 511.6 MB/s and write at 444.0 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the PX-256M5P's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the PX-256M5P had average read and write speeds of 418.5 MB/s and 365.3 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 345.5 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PX-256M5P's 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 PX-256M5P |
 OCZ Vertex 4 256GB |
When tested with ATTO, the PX-256M5P's read speeds topped out at about 547 MB/s and its write speeds at 460 MB/s.
