[Kevin OBrien]

After the popularity of the Plextor M3S review, we finally got our hands on the new PX-M3P, which showed surprisingly strong performance in a wide range of conditions and a boost in performance with firmware tweaks.

Plextor PX-M3P SSD Review

[Beenthere]

Thanks for the review.

It looks like a mixed bag with the M3P. The M3P should be the "standard drive" and Plextor should work on a real Pro drive IMO. With most consumers buying the 128 Gig. drives I think they would be a better choice for review but of course the SSD makers don't want consumers to know the significant drop off in sequential write performance of a 128 vs. a 256 GB. SSD drive.

[johnw42]

Great job on the steady-state portion of the review!

But there were two major problems, the first is by far the worst:

1) Terrible choice of comparison SSDs. All 4 competitors were nearly equivalent Sandforce SSDs! What were you thinking?

The competitors should have been: Intel 520, one other Sandforce SSD (Vertex3, HyperX, or KC100), Samsung 830, Crucial m4, and Intel 320.

2) Your "real world" tests are flawed, and not at all representative of real world usage. For example, look at the "HTPC disk capture" test. Video files are a perfect example of incompressible data. And yet your Sandforce SSDs report rates of 450MB/s, which is close to the easily-compressible sequential write rates you measured with IOMeter of 460MB/s, and nowhere near the incompressible sequential write rates of less than 300MB/s you measured with IOMeter. Clearly your "real world" test is writing UNrealistic highly compressible files instead of real video files.

This post has been edited by johnw42: 28 March 2012 - 01:21 PM

[Kevin OBrien]

 johnw42, on 28 March 2012 - 01:19 PM, said:

Great job on the steady-state portion of the review!

But there were two major problems, the first is by far the worst:

1) Terrible choice of comparison SSDs. All 4 competitors were nearly equivalent Sandforce SSDs! What were you thinking?

The competitors should have been: Intel 520, one other Sandforce SSD (Vertex3, HyperX, or KC100), Samsung 830, Crucial m4, and Intel 320.

2) Your "real world" tests are flawed, and not at all representative of real world usage. For example, look at the "HTPC disk capture" test. Video files are a perfect example of incompressible data. And yet your Sandforce SSDs report rates of 450MB/s, which is close to the easily-compressible sequential write rates you measured with IOMeter of 460MB/s, and nowhere near the incompressible sequential write rates of less than 300MB/s you measured with IOMeter. Clearly your "real world" test is writing UNrealistic highly compressible files instead of real video files.

We are ever so close to getting a dynamic chart generation system in progress (actually using it manually now) and with that in place it will be easier to handle comparables. This we used the most current set with the M3S and M3P added on.

On the real-world trace aspect, it is still working with direct LBA addressing, the next iteration can apply specific datatypes (fully incompressible/compressible). With it requiring a full retest of every drive to be meaningful at launch, we will be introducing it on consumer drives when we launch out next testing platform that is in validation now. Direct LBA interaction is still a step forward from generic I/O from a synthetic benchmark... and addressing the newer SSD controllers is a step we already have in place ready to be rolled out.

Our main goal right now is to provide a wide range of benchmarks so that if one area might be weaker than others, another testing segment can be more relevant for a given workload. Its really coming down to what the best stuff we have on hand at a given time during a review. Some of the behind the scenes stuff is growing the lab and improving some of the same tests that are in need of an overhaul. So you can be assured that we are taking note and looking at all new ways of testing .

[Octoploid]

Is there a chance to transform a M3S into a M3P by somehow forcing the M3P firmware onto a M3S?

[Brian]

There is not a firmware upgrade path for the M3S to a M3P.

[UranusFX]

Had been waiting for a review, very interesting!

But M3S and M3P have been swapped in the data of Power Consulption?

[Werner Juvik]

 Kevin OBrien, on 28 March 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

We are ever so close to getting a dynamic chart generation system in progress (actually using it manually now) and with that in place it will be easier to handle comparables. This we used the most current set with the M3S and M3P added on.

On the real-world trace aspect, it is still working with direct LBA addressing, the next iteration can apply specific datatypes (fully incompressible/compressible). With it requiring a full retest of every drive to be meaningful at launch, we will be introducing it on consumer drives when we launch out next testing platform that is in validation now. Direct LBA interaction is still a step forward from generic I/O from a synthetic benchmark... and addressing the newer SSD controllers is a step we already have in place ready to be rolled out.

Our main goal right now is to provide a wide range of benchmarks so that if one area might be weaker than others, another testing segment can be more relevant for a given workload. Its really coming down to what the best stuff we have on hand at a given time during a review. Some of the behind the scenes stuff is growing the lab and improving some of the same tests that are in need of an overhaul. So you can be assured that we are taking note and looking at all new ways of testing .

Thanks for a fine review.

Is this a drive that´s particularly suitable for video- and raw photography editing working in Macbook Pro environment, or should I be looking elsewhere? There are many nice reviews out there, but I do miss clear guidance from the experts on which drive suits best the different tasks. If reviews could include recommendations intended for those of us with no time or ability to consume all quirks of tech around, it would be a tremendous help in navigating for a high performance work platform. I do think the typical video and photog guy, as you now know concerns me, concentrate on the task, and halt other processes like games. Most likely they would by far prefer an SSD performing better with video editing than games or other applications. I do see you have attempted to bring it down to real life, and maybe it´s asking too much to get recommendations for specific professions. But it would be greatly appreciated and infinitely valuable if it could be done.

This post has been edited by Werner Juvik: 30 March 2012 - 02:51 AM

[johnw42]

 Werner Juvik, on 30 March 2012 - 02:50 AM, said:

Is this a drive that´s particularly suitable for video- and raw photography editing working in Macbook Pro environment, or should I be looking elsewhere?

In my limited experience, an important quality for video editing is high sequential write speed for incompressible data.

I think the Plextor M3P has the highest incompressible data sequential write speed of any consumer SSD, so in that sense it should be a good choice for video editing.

I don't have any experience with SSDs in a Mac environment, so I cannot comment on that aspect of your question.

[gandhi]

Thanks for the review and in particular for adding steady-state figures in many of the recent reviews - this is very much appreciated and not found elsewhere. This is great help when trying to decide what drive to use in scenarios where TRIM is not an option like ESXi, for example.

Still curious if one could cross-flash M3P firmware on M3 ...