Model: Plextor PX-256M6S 256GB Solid State Drive
Manufacturer: Plextor
Provided By: Plextor LLC

As one of the biggest names in the storage industry, Plextor doesn't need much of an introduction. For more than a decade, they've produced some of the best optical drives the industry has seen. Known the world over for their quality, performance, and features, these drives have become favorites among consumers and professionals alike. Today, Plextor continues to lead the way by bringing cutting edge storage technologies to market. Along with a vast assortment of high-performance DVD and Blu-ray drives, the company offers NAS devices, external hard drives and a growing number of solid state drives.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Plextor launched its new M6 series SSDs. Along with the mSATA M6S and PCIe M6e, this multi-form factor lineup included the company's latest 2.5-inch SSD, the M6S. This highly efficient, high-performance SSD combines Marvell's 88SS9188 "Monet Lite" controller with Toshiba's Advanced 19nm (A19) Toggle Mode MLC NAND to deliver up to 520MB/s read and 440MB/s write transfer rates. The M6S also features support for Plextor's exclusive True Speed technology as well as the Device Sleep (DEVSLP) standard which extends the battery life of a device by reducing the drive's power consumption to a mere 2 mW when it's not in use.

For this review, Plextor sent us the PX-256M6S. This 256GB SSD comes equipped with 512MB of on-board cache and is capable of delivering up to 520MB/s sequential read and 420MB/s sequential write speeds as well as up to 90,000 random read and 80,000 random write IOPS.

   Plextor PX-256M6S 256GB Solid State Drive
General Specifications
Capacity 256GB
Flash Type Toshiba A19 Toggle Mode NAND
Controller Marvell 88SS9188 "Monet Lite"
Cache 512MB DDR3
Form Factor 2.5-inch
Interface SATA III 6Gb/s

Performance
Sequential Read 520 MB/s Max
Sequential Write 420 MB/s Max
Random Read (IOPS 4K) 90,000 Max
Random Write (IOPS 4K) 80,000 Max

Power Consumption
MobileMark 0.25W

Environment and Reliability
Temperature (Operating) 32 ºF to 158 ºF (0 ºC to 70 ºC)
Shock 1500G, 1 ms
Vibration (Operating) 7~800Hz, 2.17G (RMS)
MTBF 1.5 million hours

Dimensions and Weight
Dimensions 69.85 mm x 100 mm x 6.8 mm
Weight 60g

Other Features
Exclusive True Speed technology
DEVSLP power mode
Supports TRIM, SMART, NCQ, ATA/ATAPI-8
256-bit AES encryption
Three year warranty

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the PX-256M6S has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at Plextor's new 256GB SSD and then see how well it performs.  Does the PX-256M6S have what it takes? Can it deliver the performance and features that we've come to expect from Plextor? Keep reading as we find out.


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