Plextor M6e PCIe solid state drive available in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities starting April 7

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,253   +192
Staff member

plextor announces worldwide release m6e pci express ssd gamers ssd plextor m6e pci express

Plextor on Thursday announced the worldwide availability of the M6e PCI Express solid state drive. Billed as the first SSD specifically designed for professional gamers, Plextor claims power users can experience speeds up to 50 percent faster than traditional SATA-based SSDs.

Offered in capacities of 128GB, 256GB and 512GB with a five-year warranty, the M6e PCIe SSD combines the latest generation Marvell 88SS9183 dual-core server-grade controller and synchronous Toshiba Toggle NAND flash with firmware developed and tested by Plextor's in-house team.

By taking advantage of the PCI Express 2.0 x2 interface, the card is able to circumvent the 6GB/sec bottleneck associated with SATA 3.0 and the fact that it is automatically recognized as an AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) device means there are no additional drivers required for installation and use. It supports both legacy BIOS as well as UEFI for added compatibility.

plextor announces worldwide release m6e pci express ssd gamers ssd plextor m6e pci express

Plextor tells us the 512GB M6e is capable of maximum sequential speeds of 770 MB/sec read and 625 MB/sec write with random read / write speeds of 105K IOPS and 100K IOPS, respectively. Smaller capacity drives offer slower sequential write and random read / write speeds, common among most all SSDs.

MTBF (mean time between failure) is listed at 2.4 million hours but of course, individual mileage will likely vary based on how hard you use the drive, etc.

It’s not the fastest PCIe SSD we’ve seen hit the market but regardless, it offers yet another option for consumers to contemplate. Cards will be available exclusively at Newegg starting April 7 with pricing starting at $179.99 for the 128GB offering and topping out around $550 for the 512GB card.

Permalink to story.

 
I dont understand why this is catered to "pro gamers". Games barely take advantage of an SSD other than for loading elements faster... odd indeed.
 
I dont understand why this is catered to "pro gamers". Games barely take advantage of an SSD other than for loading elements faster... odd indeed.
I'm not sure either. Maybe Plextor figures this is the only demographic that is not afraid to open their computer or understand what this piece of kit is, or maybe more importantly, be persuaded to spend money on it as pre-built computer sales fall. If that is it, they are fools, spend your money on a rockin' video card and monitor. $750 for 512 GB, that will buy a nice video card or a not so bad monitor
 
I dont understand why this is catered to "pro gamers". Games barely take advantage of an SSD other than for loading elements faster... odd indeed.
I'm not sure either. Maybe Plextor figures this is the only demographic that is not afraid to open their computer or understand what this piece of kit is, or maybe more importantly, be persuaded to spend money on it as pre-built computer sales fall. If that is it, they are fools, spend your money on a rockin' video card and monitor. $750 for 512 GB, that will buy a nice video card or a not so bad monitor

I agree that SSD generally only reduces games' load time, but man, once you get used to it, it sure is difficult to go back to the long load time on HDD. $750, though, is definitely for those with deeeeeep pockets.
 
I dont understand why this is catered to "pro gamers". Games barely take advantage of an SSD other than for loading elements faster... odd indeed.
Yes loading faster is an important part for many gamers. Also lends to a more responsive system in general particularly when multitasking.
One of those "once you go there, hard to go back" things.
 
How dare they install this ugly GREEN ssd in a black and red motherboard!
 
I dont understand why this is catered to "pro gamers". Games barely take advantage of an SSD other than for loading elements faster... odd indeed.
I was thinking along those lines as well. They target these things at pro gamers and I don't see it being a big market if in fact such a thing exists. Plextor may make very good drives but they need to do something about their advertising/marketing dept. Bottom line, this is a consumer drive, nothing more, nothing less (with easy to access LED's on the backplate).
 
Those prices sound out of whack, maybe it's just "Newegg tax"?
For once something is cheaper in Sweden and let me tell you that is a first!
I'll remind you also that this is a normal M.2 SSD strapped to a passive PCIe > M.2 adapter.
The only thing the adapter provides is some pretty LED's.
And the actual physical interface so you can fit it into your desktop...
 
This is what a pro-gamer needed, especially when loading games like Titanfall.. so, with this you'll be the first done loading the game.. then you will wait other player finished their loading :D
 
Lol these prices are insane, just because they connect to pci e x16 ? most people who are willing to open their computer and replace parts will also reveal with a quick google search that these do not offer much over reg ssd
 
I dont understand why this is catered to "pro gamers". Games barely take advantage of an SSD other than for loading elements faster... odd indeed.
There 71.4 BILLION reasons last year alone world wide why pro gamers would be the logical choice, now anyone that requires fast read write speeds would benifit ex: photoshop users, cad developers ect... Do you know that the last major gaming event had more streames / viewers than any World series, World Cup event ever in history
 
When I made my comment I was assuming most gamers already have some sort of SSD, so this device would be an upgrade, that's why I figured the money would be better spent on a video card or display.
 
Yea I agree that the marketing for this drive is a bit strange.
That said it's coming from a company which have released allot of other solid SSD's
And based on a nice Marvell controller.
It's also one of the first (maybe first?) drives to offer itself as a AHCI device to the computer and thus support the TRIM command while also being bootable, even though it's directly connected via PCIe.
That makes this SSD kind of groundbreaking in my book atleast, I would love to have one :)
 
You can raid 0 four reg ssd's cheaper and get faster speeds lol. (four x m500 about two hundred quid, if you haggle)
 
You can raid 0 four reg ssd's cheaper and get faster speeds lol. (four x m500 about two hundred quid, if you haggle)
Also they are obviously quoting the best speeds (for the 500gb drive) which would lead one to believe that the 256 and 128 especially, are considerably worse (parallelism on dies). First shot in the upcoming war, bring up the Samsung Heavy Guns.
 
Actually the 512GB & 256GB are quite similar in performance, random 4k performance is exactly the same and only sequential read is 45MB/s lower at 580MB/s instead.
The 128GB model is considerably slower, random write goes down about 20%, read ca 10% & sequential write is 335MB/s (50% lower)
Sequential read is the same for all drives though, 770MB/sec

Remember that when comparing the price of these you should look at other PCI Express drives, there is nothing that comes close...
That said it is afterall "only" a M.2 PCIe SSD strapped to a passive PCIe adapter, so in effect the price difference you are paying is for the adapter.

Right now in Sweden I can buy the Crucial M.2 M550 at a little more than half the price of the Plextor M6e.
And the Crucial M.2 M500 comes in at under half the price.
They are however all S-ATA 6GB/s controllers, so their performance is lower.
And the most important metric of an SSD, it's response time does not improve when putting several drives in a RAID-0.
So there is definitely a place for this drive, but to be honest I was hoping for a little bit more performance.
 
It's also one of the first (maybe first?) drives to offer itself as a AHCI device to the computer and thus support the TRIM command while also being bootable, even though it's directly connected via PCIe.
Asus ROG RAIDR is another that does I believe (keeping a keen eye on that exact thing ;) )
 
Nope, that's two Sandforce SATA controllers that are connected via a LSI RAID controller, very messy solution and really bad performance.
You can run your own RAID-0 with regular SATA SSD's and get much better performance & value for money...
http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/426...0gb-pci-express-ssd-review-is-this-the-future
Thought it was a Marvell controller? (For PCIe interface and the SandForces are connected to the Marvel so it is AHCI->PCIe bridged)
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5921/asus-rog-raidr-express-240gb-pcie-ssd-review/index4.html

Also Asus quotes AHCI TRIM support but not sure how it works as I didn't think PCIe passed on AHCI TRIM commands...
http://www.asus.com/Storage/RAIDR_Express_PCIe_SSD/
 
Last edited:
This is another EPIC FAIL cost to much . All ready over crowded market that saw OCZ bankrupt. Who is Plextor anymore?
 
Back