Plextor M6 Pro 256Go: Review| Specs| Pros & Cons| Set-up

Contents hide

1 Specification: Comparison – PX-128M6Pro Vs PX-256M6Pro VS PX-512M6Pro Vs PX-1TM6Pro

2 The test setup

3 ATTO Disk Benchmark

4 AS SSD

5 CrystalDiskMark

6 HD Tune Pro

7 Futuremark PCMark 8

8 Practical tests

9 Plexturbo

10 Advantages

10.1 Where to find the Plextor M6 Pro?

10.2 Related posts:

We continue with the SSD and Plextor tests once again, which instructed me to take a look at a high-end model, the M6 Pro in its 256GB version! Particularly business oriented, the M6 Pro (unlike the M6S tested here which is a “general public” model) has a theoretical throughput of 545 MB / s in reading and 490 MB / s in writing, with a 5-year warranty. as well as the “Plexturbo” technology which caches the data most often used in RAM in order to speed up processing and extend the life of the SSD (a chapter will be dedicated to this in the test).
Offered at a price of around 150 € it is opposite the Samsung 850 Pro which is also intended to be used in a professional environment, let’s see what the M6 Pro has in its belly!

Specification: Comparison – PX-128M6Pro Vs PX-256M6Pro VS PX-512M6Pro Vs PX-1TM6Pro

Model name	PX-128M6Pro	PX-256M6Pro	PX-512M6Pro	PX-1TM6Pro
Capacity	128 Go	256 Go	512 Go	1TB
Format	2.5″	2.5″	2.5″	2.5″
Dimensions	100 x 69.85 x 6.8 mm	100 x 69.85 x 6.8 mm	100 x 69.85 x 6.8 mm	100 x 69.85 x 6.8 mm
Weight	70 g	70 g	70 g	70 g
Interface	Sata 3.0	Sata 3.0	Sata 3.0	Sata 3.0
Controller	Marvell 88SS9187	Marvell 88SS9187	Marvell 88SS9187	Marvell 88SS9187
Nand	Toshiba A19nm MLC	Toshiba A19nm MLC	Toshiba A19nm MLC	Toshiba A19nm MLC
Cache memory	256 Mo DDR3	512 Mo DDR3	768 Mo DDR3	1024 Mo DDR3
Sequential Read	Up to 545 MB / s	Up to 545 MB / s	Up to 545 MB / s	Up to 545 MB / s
Sequential Write	Up to 330 MB / s	Up to 490 MB / s	Up to 490 MB / s	Up to 490 MB / s
Shuffle playback	Up to 100,000 IOPS	Up to 100,000 IOPS	Up to 100,000 IOPS	Up to 100,000 IOPS
Random writing	Up to 82,000 IOPS	Up to 86,000 IOPS	Up to 88,000 IOPS	Up to 88,000 IOPS
Consumption	0.25 Watts	0.25 Watts	0.25 Watts	0.25 Watts
Operating temperatures	0°C ~ 70°C	0°C ~ 70°C	0°C ~ 70°C	0°C ~ 70°C
Impact resistance	1500G	1500G	1500G	1500G
MTBF	> 2,400,000 hours	> 2,400,000 hours	> 2,400,000 hours	> 2,400,000 hours
Guarantee	5 years	5 years	5 years	5 years
Price	~ 86€	~ 150€	~ 300€	~ 600€

As we can see the Plextor M6 Pro 256GB is a 2.5 ″ SSD, very light with its 70 grams. The Sata 3.0 is of course in the game with a maximum speed of 6Gb / s I remind you, the whole range of M6 Pro offers a maximum sequential reading of 545 MB / s while the writing varies from 330 MB / s for the 128GB version at 490 MB / s for the 256GB 512GB and 1TB, speeds which are supposed to be excellent in theory, which should be verified in practice.

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The integrated controller is a Marvell 88SS9187 (the same as the M6S) supported by Toshiba A19nm MLC type chips. The operating temperatures range from 0 ° to 70 ° which should not be a problem for almost the entire population, unless you have your PC outside in the snow!

Reliability is key for the Pro version with 2.4 million hours of MTBF (~ 274 years) and a 5-year warranty (which is average for this type of product). Prices range from around € 85 for the 128GB version to € 600 for the 1Tb version, there is something for all budgets!

A front of the box which wants to be minimalist with a high-end spirit, only the brand, the model as well as the capacity are present, we will not complain about the lack of marketing mentions!

At the back Plextor catches up and shields information, technical specifications, weight, MTBF, dimensions as well as the contents of the box (we have accessories!) And the various logos.

Under the cover we find a box all in black dressed with a small M6 Pro in white, a bit like a high-end phone.

Once the box is open, we find ourselves face to face with the beast well sheltered in its foam, transport will undoubtedly not pose any problems given the protections in place.

Once the foam has been removed we finally have access to the bundle, which I will detail immediately:

The bundle consists of:

1 CD of drivers and software
1 warranty leaflet
1 quick installation guide
1 adapter 3.5 ″ -> 2.5 ″
1 hour clock
The necessary screws

For an SSD the bundle is very complete, it comes with everything you need, the CD contains the plextor software (including cloning software), if you don’t have a 2.5 ″ slot in the tower l The adapter is supplied and if you run out of Sata Plextor cable supplied one in the box!
Now for the SSD itself.

Here is the beast seen from above! All in copper-colored aluminum with only the printed mark, we can say that sobriety and class are the order of the day, we like or we don’t like the copper color.

Below of course the technical data are present, model, serial number, capacity, logos etc.

Here are the entrails of the beast! We can see the Toshiba TH58TEG8DDKBA8C MLC NAND chips as well as the Marvell 88SS9187 controller and the DDR3 cache memory entrusted to Hynix. The back of the PCB is free of any components.

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The test setup

The configuration used during the tests is as follows:

Processor : Intel Core i4670K @ 4 Ghz
CPU Fan : Noctua NH-D15
Motherboard : Gigabyte Z97-D3H
Carte graphique : XFX 7870 Black Edition
Ventirad Graphics Card : Accelero S1 rev B + 2 Noctua NF-F12
Mémoire: Kingston Beast 4 x 8 Go 1866Mhz
SSD: Intel Postville X25-M 80Go (OS)
Alimentation: be quiet! E9 580CM
Operating system : Windows 8.1 64bits

The Plextor M6 Pro 256 GB will be tested against the SSDs I have at my disposal, i.e. a Samsung 830 128 GB, an AMD R7 240 GB (tested here), Plextor M6S 256 GB (tested here) and the Plextor M6e 128 Go (tested here)!

The software used is as follows:

ATTO Disk Benchmark (downloadable here)
AS SSD Benchmark (downloadable here)
CrystalDiskMark (downloadable here)
HD Tune Pro (downloadable here)
Futuremark PCMark 8 (downloadable here)

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Under ATTO and reading, the Plextor M6 Pro 256GB obtains excellent results, with a maximum sequential throughput of almost 550MB / s, the theoretical throughputs are well respected. The reading of small files is on the other hand excellent with 44.9 MB / s, 88.6 MB / s and 140.1 MB / s for files of respectively 512 bytes, 1KB and 2KB, the competition is very far behind!

Same observation in writing, the theoretical 490 MB / s are once again respected on large files. The M6 Pro 256GB is once again much better than its competitors of the day in terms of small files with 36.2 MB / s, 70.1 MB / s and 136.8 MB / s for files of respectively 512 bytes, 1KB and 2KB there or an AMD R7 240GB only manages to 20.2MB / s, 41.1MB / s and 58.9MB / s.

AS SSD

In reading the M6 Pro is placed first on all the tests exceeded only by the M6e which has a greater bandwidth thanks to its PCIe interface. In writing, however, it is slightly behind the fastest in the comparison, the R7 240GB, but the results remain excellent.

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CrystalDiskMark

Under CrystalDiskMark the results are once again very good for the Plextor, especially for small files where it excels.

HD Tune Pro

Once again the results are excellent with an average of 404.8 MB / s in reading and 337.3 MB / s in writing under HD Tune Pro, only the AMD R7 240GB manages to do better than the Plextor and only in writing.

Futuremark PCMark 8

Futuremark PCMark 8	AMD R7 240 Go	Plextor M6S 256 Go	Samsung 830 128 Go	Plextor M6e 128Gb	Plextor M6 Pro 256 Go
Score	4924	4954	4927	4973	4968
Bandwidth	207.9 Mo / s	240.46 Mo / s	210.96 Mo / s	267.09 Mo / s	255.08 Mo / s
Adobe Photoshop light	115 s	114.8 s	114.7 s	114.1 s	114.3 s
Adobe Photoshop heavy	359.4 s	362.8 s	363.5 s	362.1 s	361.3 s
Adobe InDesign	58 s	57.9 s	58.4 s	57.7 s	57.5 s
Adobe After Effects	71.3 s	70.8 s	71.1 s	70.6 s	70.7 s
Adobe Illustrator	72.6 s	72.1 s	72.5 s	71.9 s	71.9 s
Microsoft Word	28.5 s	28.3 s	28.4 s	28.2 s	28.3 s
Microsoft Excel	9.4 s	9.2 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.2 s
Microsoft PowerPoint	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.2 s
Battlefield 3	134.5 s	133.7 s	134.4 s	133.2 s	133.3 s
Word of Warcraft	58.9 s	58.3 s	58.7 s	58.2 s	58.3 s
Total duration	1h 8min 56s	1h 6min 1s	1h 7min 30s	1h 8min 1s	1h 3min 46s

As we can see the results of the 5 SSDs are very close, the Plextor M6 Pro 256GB comes in second position just behind the M6e which owes its good results to its PCIe interface once again! PCMark8 tries to simulate everyday actions, we can see here that any SSD (from the comparison) is capable of very good performance.

Practical tests

Let’s move on to the practice tests now! For this I will use 2 scenarios, a copy of a 14.1 GB directory made up of 88 Folders and 12 647 files of various sizes and a copy of a single 15.3 GB
file . The source files are in first copied to a RAMDisk (more information here) and then sent to the various SSDs, in this way there will logically be no clamping at the source.

The M6 Pro wins this test once again even if in the end the results are very close, in practice there will be only one stopwatch which will allow all the SSDs in the test to be decided (except for the M6e 128GB and Samsung 830 128GB which have a much lower write speed).

Plexturbo

Plextor offers software that allows files to be cached in the central RAM of the PC in order to speed up transfers and save wear and tear on the memory chips of the SSD. Basically it is a mini RAMDisk (see more information here) optimized by Plextor for its SSDs, let’s see what this gives in the different benchmarks:

Plextor_M6_Pro_256_Go_plexturbo_Atto_Ecriture

Plextor_M6_Pro_256_Go_plexturbo_CrystalDiskMark

Plextor_M6_Pro_256_Go_plexturbo_HD_Tune_Pro

Plextor_M6_Pro_256_Go_plexturbo_Tests_Pratiques

As we can see according to the benchmarks the results are exploding, except under HDTune Pro (which is normal) and when copying files in practice, in fact the mini RAMDisk that is Plexturbo will only be useful during the use of frequently launched software and not when copying new files. However, I did not see any weak points during the tests so I might as well use it, especially since it will save on memory chip wear!

Here we are at the end of this test, what to say about the Plextor M6 Pro 256GB?
During the benchmarks the M6 Pro behaved very well especially when reading and writing small files, which makes it an SSD perfectly suited to professional use, which is what it is intended for! Versatility is a real asset for the Plextor, it is good everywhere even in practical tests.
For “gaming” use there will not really be much difference with a mid-range SSD (like the Plextor M6S 256GB, tested here), at best a few seconds of savings which will only be noted with a stopwatch. in hand.
Offered at a price of around 150 € in its 256GB version, it is intended for high-end or professional configurations that do not seek compromise, quite simply one of the best SSDs on the market today!