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 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.