Test - Plextor M6e-BK 256 Go: |Specs | CPU | Hashrate | Review

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1 Specification: Hashrate – Plextor M6e-BK 256 Go

2 The test setup

3 The configuration used during the tests is as follows:

4 The Plextor M6e-BK 256GB tested against the SSDs:

5 The software used is as follows:

6 ATTO Disk Benchmark

12.1 Where to find Plextor M6E-BK SSDs?

12.2 Related posts:

Now that SSDs in 2.5 ″ Sata format have become commonplace and manage to saturate the bandwidth of the Sata 3.0 interface, manufacturers are scrambling to release products that would be even more efficient, this is the case with Plextor today which gives me the chance to test a 2x PCIe SSD with a devastating look, the M6e Black Edition 256GB. I have already had the chance to test its little brother M6e 128 GB (here) which is none other than an SSD in M.2 format installed in an adapter which does not make the Black Edition installable in a PCIe 2x port. is not much different other than the overall look, but we’ll see that below!

Offered at a price of around 250 € it is clear that the little one is not cheap but it is not for everyone, only benchmarks addicts should be interested, but enough chatter and it is time that I dissect the beast!

Specification: Hashrate – Plextor M6e-BK 256 Go

Model name	PX-128M6E-BK	PX-256M6E-BK	PX-512M6E-BK
Capacity	128 Go	256 Go	512 Go
Format	M.2 + PCie 2x adapter	M.2 + PCie 2x adapter	M.2 + PCie 2x adapter
Weight	180g	180g	180g
Interface	M.2 + Pcie 2x	M.2 + Pcie 2x	M.2 + Pcie 2x
Controller	Marvell® 88SS9183	Marvell® 88SS9183	Marvell® 88SS9183
Nand	Toshiba A19nm MLC	Toshiba A19nm MLC	Toshiba A19nm MLC
Cache memory	512 Mo DDR3	256 Mo DDR3	1 Go DDR3
Sequential Read	Up to 770 MB / s	Up to 770 MB / s	Up to 770 MB / s
Sequential Write	Up to 335 MB / s	Up to 580 MB / s	Up to 625 MB / s
Shuffle playback	Up to 96,000 IOPS	Up to 105,000 IOPS	Up to 105,000 IOPS
Random writing	Up to 83,000 IOPS	Up to 100,000 IOPS	Up to 100,000 IOPS
Operating temperatures	0°C ~ 70°C	0°C ~ 70°C	0°C ~ 70°C
Impact resistance	1500G	1500G	1500G
MTBF	> 2,400,000 hours	> 2,400,000 hours	> 2,400,000 hours
Guarantee	5 years	5 years	5 years
Price	~ 150€	~ 250€	~ 480€

The M6e Black Edition range is available in 3 versions (like the basic M6e), 128,256 and 512GB, it is the 256GB version that I will test today. Apart from the difference in capacity, only the writing speed changes from 335MB / s for the 128GB version to 625MB / s for the 512GB version, which means that the figures are rather excellent!

The integrated controller is a Marvell 88SS9183 supported by toshiba A19 nm MLC type memory. Regarding the weight we are here in the presence of a rather heavy beast for this type of product, when the basic M6e weighs 72g (PCie adapter included) the M6e Black Edition meanwhile weighs at 180g, Plextor has put the package on the radiator used to cool the small M.2 SSD, which will not hurt.
In terms of the warranty, we have it for 5 years, with an MTBF of 2.4 million hours, which is not nothing! We can see that plextor relies above all on the reliability of its M.2 models. Offered at 250 € for its 256GB version, the M6e Black Edition is of course more expensive than Sata SSDs (and basic M6e by far), unfortunately we have nothing for nothing when we want to taste the latest technologies!

On the front, Plextor does as usual in the sober, but exit the red of the basic M6e version for more classy black. It includes the model, the brand as well as the 5-year warranty.

At the back we learn more about the beast, the full technical characteristics are available, cache memory, speeds, MTBF, dimensions, weight and so on. A little word that makes people smile when it comes to power supply, indeed despite the maximum consumption of 20.4 Watts Plextor requires a power supply of at least 400 Watts, you never know!

By opening the box we find the various manuals and CD pilots placed on a foam plate.

Under this foam plate we find the beast, in its antistatic bag and well wrapped in its foam mold, there is very little chance that the SSD will suffer during transport, or someone had fun jumping on it with both feet 😉

Regarding the bundle and besides the SSD itself Plextor provides a quick installation guide, a VIP leaflet that lists the different ways to contact support, a CD containing the Plextool software as well as a small PlexTurbo sticker and a screw to fix to the box. We’re talking about an SSD here so I don’t see what more could be provided!

Here is the beast! Plextor has clearly put the package on the look compared to the basic M6e, finished the green PCB for high quality black, a black fairing of the most beautiful effect as well as a red aluminum radiator. Suffice to say that the black and the red are reminiscent of a “gamer” product, this will certainly be a point for those who favor the look when assembling their configuration (not that it serves for anything though).

At the back the PCB remains black and we can see that the quality is clearly there, even if it is only a simple M.2 -> PCIe adapter.

Once the radiator has been removed (which is really huge) we can see that a thermal pad is present and covers the entire SSD itself. This may seem unnecessary at first, but you should know that these little animals can heat up strongly and easily exceed 80 °, so even if the look is clearly eye-catching the radiator has its uses.
We also notice that a Sata connector is present at the top, the PCIe port should normally be more than enough to power the beast so I doubt a little of the usefulness of the thing, it will also be possible to connect the LED of the box directly to the PCIe card, which is not always the case and may prove useful if the M6e BK hosts the operating system.

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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 Z87-UD5 TH
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 M6e-BK 256GB tested against the SSDs:

Crucial MX200 250GB (tested here)
Samsung 830 128Go
Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB (tested here)
Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB (tested here)
AMD R7 240GB (tested here)
Plextor M6S 256GB (tested here)
Plextor M6e 128GB (tested here)
Plextor M6 Pro 256GB (tested here)

The software used is as follows:

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

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Plextor_M6e_BK_256Go_resultats_atto_lecture

When reading under ATTO we can clearly see that the Plextore M6e BK 256GB offers excellent performance, especially when it comes to files over 32KB, the performance is very close to its little brother the M6e 128GB with more than 755 MB / s peak. There aren’t many SSDs in this review that can keep up with the pace, other than the Kingston HyperX Savage which performs well on small files and outperforms the Plextor in today’s test.

Plextor_M6e_BK_256Go_resultats_atto_ecriture

When reading the M6e 128GB kept pace, the same is not true for writing, 586 MB / s maximum peak for the M6e-BK which is simply the best result of the comparison, the poor SSD in Sata does not unfortunately can not keep up with saturation of the interface. Whether for small files or large files the M6e-BK is simply very good.

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AS SSD

Here again the other SSDs in the comparison are behind, especially during sequential reading where the M6e-BK goes up to 652 MB / s, a result similar to its little brother M6e. In writing, the sequential throughput is once again the best with 539 MB / s, beating the AMD R7 240 and Kingston HyperX Savage which do not manage to exceed 500 MB / s. The results on small files on the other hand are not the best in reading or writing, but we stay within the norm.

CrystalDiskMark

The results are clear under CrystalDiskMark, the Plextor M6e-BK 256GB buries the competition with 718 MB / s in peak reading against 575 MB / s in writing, the competitors unfortunately can not compete. Only once again the results on small files are a little worse and are very slightly behind the other SSDs in the comparison, nothing that does not change the situation anyway.

Futuremark PCMARK8

Futuremark PCMark 8	Plextor M6e-BK 256 Go	AMD R7 240 Go	Kingston HyperX 3K 240 Go	Kingston HyperX Savage 240 Go	Plextor M6S 256 Go	Samsung 830 128 Go	Plextor M6e 128 Go	Plextor M6 Pro 256 Go	Crucial MX200 250 Go
Score	4989	4924	4938	4946	4954	4927	4973	4968	4995
Bandwidth	292.20 Mo / s	207.9 Mo / s	223.85 Mo / s	227.56 Mo / s	240.46 Mo / s	210.96 Mo / s	267.09 Mo / s	255.08 Mo / s	297.65 Mo / s
Adobe Photoshop light	113.0 s	115 s	115.8 s	114 s	114.8 s	114.7 s	114.1 s	114.3 s	113.6 s
Adobe Photoshop heavy	365.9 s	359.4 s	368 s	359.4 s	362.8 s	363.5 s	362.1 s	361.3 s	359.2 s
Adobe InDesign	57.4 s	58 s	58.1 s	58 s	57.9 s	58.4 s	57.7 s	57.5 s	57.0 s
Adobe After Effects	70.3 s	71.3 s	71 s	71 s	70.8 s	71.1 s	70.6 s	70.7 s	70.4 s
Adobe Illustrator	71.9 s	72.6 s	72.2 s	72.3 s	72.1 s	72.5 s	71.9 s	71.9 s	71.6 s
Microsoft Word	28.2 s	28.5 s	28.5 s	28.4 s	28.3 s	28.4 s	28.2 s	28.3 s	28.1 s
Microsoft Excel	9.1 s	9.4 s	9.2 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.2 s	9.2 s
Microsoft PowerPoint	9.1 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.3 s	9.2 s	9.2 s	9.2 s
Battlefield 3	132.7 s	134.5 s	134 s	134 s	133.7 s	134.4 s	133.2 s	133.3 s	132.8 s
Word of Warcraft	57.7 s	58.9 s	58.1 s	58.6 s	58.3 s	58.7 s	58.2 s	58.3 s	57.9 s
Total duration	1h 10min 16s	1h 8min 56s	1h 9min 10s	1h 8min 29s	1h 6min 1s	1h 7min 30s	1h 8min 1s	1h 3min 46s	1h 9min 5s

Under PCMARK8, the SSD from Plextor is doing particularly well but as we can see all the other SSDs in the comparison do the same, they are all in a pocket square in terms of the execution time of each benchmark. Indeed the theoretical benchmarks are good but in the end and as I always say in use there will be really very little difference between all the SSDs on the market, the M6e-BK 256 GB is no exception and offers performance similar to all others.

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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.

Plextor_M6e_BK_256Go_practice_test_results

In practice when copying the Plextor simply achieves the best results here, whether copying the large file with 25s or copying small files and its 59s. We can say that shows in hand it is the fastest! Once again, unless you have a stopwatch in your hands there won’t really be a glaring difference between all the SSDs in the comparison, unless you make copies of large files on a fairly old SSD and / or write-restricted. .

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_M6e_BK_256Go_resultats_plexturbo_atto_ecriture

Plextor_M6e_BK_256Go_resultats_plexturbo_crystaldiskmark

As we can see according to the benchmarks the results explode, except when copying files in practice, in fact the mini RAMDisk that is Plexturbo will only be useful when using software that is often launched and not when downloading. copy 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 about the Plextor M6e-BK 256GB?
The performance in the benchmarks of the Plextor M6e-BK is really excellent, especially in sequential speeds it literally explodes the competition, whether in reading or writing. In practice, the SSD will turn out to be just as fast as the other SSDs, unless of course you have a stopwatch in your hands;). Plextor has updated its M6e by changing the very industrial look of the latter for a very oriented “gamer” look all in black and red dressed, this has little impact in terms of performance (colors) but the radiator is a nice little addition for an M.2 SSD that can get hot.

Offered at a price of around € 250 for the 256 GB version, it is clear that this will not be suitable for all budgets but those who are eyeing products of this type should not be overly shocked. In the end, if you want one of the most powerful SSDs on the market without having to spend a lot of money on your gaming setup, then the Plextor M6-BK will be an excellent choice, for ordinary people other more classic SSDs will be perfect.