[Kevin OBrien]

Like their recent M2P SSD, the Plextor PX-M3S uses a Marvell 9174 processor, however where the M2P used Toshiba's 32nm Toggle NAND, the M3S is using 24nm Toshiba Toggle NAND. This translates into a modest boost in the spec sheet speeds over the M2P - the M3S can drive read speeds of up to 525MB/s and writes of 445MB/s, along with 70,000 IOPS. Plextor is shipping the M3S with their True Speed technology, which provides for better drive performance over time, along with custom firmware. To polish off the offering, Plextor is including a five year warranty, the longest available in the SSD space.

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[[ETA]MrSpadge]

Looks like it is a very nice and solid drive. The slight drop in speed is probably the same which happened when Sandforce 1200 drives transitioned from 32 nm to 25 nm.

However, I'm not so sure about the great price. In Germany the 128 M3S is offered for 180€ (6 listed). That may change as the drive fully arrives at the market.. but for now it's way above the cost of e.g. Sandforce 2200 drives for ~130€.

MrS

[mike2h]

good chance(very) im wrong but this drive looks like it is designed to operate really well as a standard os drive for an average user(guess i should spend the time to learn what all the tests actually relate to for real world use ).
thx for the review!

[johnw42]

It would be interesting to see Enterprise IOMeter tests on this SSD. I believe it has the same firmware feature that the M2P had that is supposed to hold up well under continuous loads.

Actually, it would be good to see "Enterprise" IOMeter tests on all SSDs. Certainly some non-enterprise users are concerned about how SSDs hold up under continuous loads.

[Liam_xi]

Looks like a nice drive, but probably a lot harder to find then the M2P, and not that much faster, it actually has a drop in some areas.
I'm still in debate... should I get the M2P or M3S? (either 128GB or 256GB). The M3S seems to be cheaper, but I can't find it anywhere in stock yet...

[Brian]

@ETA - Yeah, can't comment on global prices, but it's very well priced here

@mike - it's a solid all arounder, with best performance in 4K tests

@John - we will be doing SS on this drive - ran into a snag and didn't want to hold up the entire review

@Liam - NewEgg has it...I'd be buying this drive on price alone.

[h4lf]

@Brian, cool looking forward to the enterprise steady state results!

One thing I was wondering is whether there is any change to the "official" durability specifications of this drive due to the transitions to 25nm? Theoretically this should result in lower write cycles and assuming the firmware is the same then would it be safe to assume this drive is less "durable"?

[Brian]

I assume not considering the 5 year warranty. The write cycle endurance isn't always something SSD guys are terribly forthcoming with.

[Kevin OBrien]

johnw42, on 06 December 2011 - 08:15 PM, said:

Actually, it would be good to see "Enterprise" IOMeter tests on all SSDs. Certainly some non-enterprise users are concerned about how SSDs hold up under continuous loads.

To expand a bit further on Brian's comment, this is what we are looking to do on all drives going forward. The problem is, if you have a handful of drives that are *very* similar, it might only be worthwhile to run the entire battery of tests on one of them. Our current steady state test alone takes 3-4 hours. As we start looking at more enterprise drives though, its going to be steady state server tests. The latter group of tests would be peak steady state values (32,64, or 128 queue) instead of the graphing as is since it would have to level off at each part for a couple of hours.

But yea expect to see more content in that regard. Depending on what we settle on it could be consumer review published first and supplement data added later. Don't get me started on proper RAID testing with SS mixed in... I am a week into this one group of enterprise drives and haven't even started working inside a multiple drive array yet.

[mike2h]

does this drive use overprovisioning? sorry if it is noob question(which i am) but given that its capacity is stated as 128 vs 120 & intel uses same controller & does overprovision...