Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & Conclusion
The M6e Black Edition is replacing the regular green PCB version, and this release was really all bout making this a more attractive and aesthetically pleasing product. Other than that there are very few changes. The heatsink for example hardly serves any function other than the fact that is looks really cool. Also keep in mind that under the hood this simply is an M.2. SSD, if you have a M.2. slot on your motherboard (most Z97 and X99 have this) then that is an easily as fast alternative. The majority of PCs however do not have an M.2. slot and for you guys this might be an excellent alternative if you want a little more spice out of your SSD. Realistically the numbers you have seen only have been possible by RAID solutions, and these days RAID is not a favored solution at all, the product is very fast in this default configuration.
Performance
The Plextor M6e Black Edition performance close to advertised, it can reach near 770 MB/sec reads and say 550 MB/sec writes. This however always goes for very selected benchmarks with bigger sequential writes. Once you pass 32/64KB files sizes the performance jumps up hard and fast easily passing 600 MB/sec easily. So the PCI Express storage unit shines at large sequential writes. IOPs performance was very good as well, though out write test showed below advertised performance, it was still more then you'll ever need. We think that our trace test (in PCMark Vantage 64-bit) is by an excellent base test. This is a trace test and can emulate what you guys do on your PC but then multiplied by a factor 100. Trace testing resulted into a very good score.
The one downside of the product is that under massive workloads the degradation performance drops down to 'normal' SSD values. Thanks to wearing, TRIM and GC the product does recover to good values. But using this product for a heavily stressed MySQL database for example would not be my preference. This mainly due to the choice of Toggle based NAND flash ICs. For everyday PC usage however you are clear as the workload in a consumer environment is simply not that daunting for today's SSDs.
Overall SSD Usage
An SSD is enjoyable, very much so. If you put a drive like this into your SATA 3 compatible laptop or SATA 3 compatible PC, you'll have no idea what is about to hit you. We very much enjoy the grand sustained performance of this SSD series, if you copy a vast amount of compressed data, then the OCZ Vector will perform seriously fast in performance. Make no mistake, replacing a HDD with an SSD in your desktop PC or laptop eliminates the random access lag of the HDD head, it is no longer mechanical. That, combined with the performance SATA 3 offers these days, is simply a massive difference and probably the best upgrade you can make for your computer anno 2015.
Street prices:
We looked up the numbers, you may expect the following prices, MSRP M6e Black Edition incl. 21% VAT::
- 128GB @ 125 EURO is 0,97 / GB
- 256GB @ 220 EURO is 0,85 / GB
- 512GB @ 460 EURO is 0,89 / GB
These are rough street prices and as you can see they are reasonable. You'll receive a five year carry-in warranty with this product.
Concluding
Until you own a motherboard with an M.2. slot, a product like this will be the next best thing. The sheer performance numbers you get thrown at you are impressive. However as shown, under very hefty workloads we see the performance of this unit drop hard, the M6E BE does recover well but the numbers we are seeing are a little so-so. If you don't have hefty workloads then you are home free, performance averages out anywhere from 500 to say almost 800 MB/sec and that is impressive. The device is bootable, reliable, will last you a long time, has 5 years warranty and simply is extremely fast for this day and era.
The looks are just fantastic, the heatsink is a little trivial as we feel its more for aesthetic reasons. It is a good product with a very nice five year warranty. The price compared to a fast SSD however is a little steep. Where enthusiast class SATA3 SSD are offered in a 50 to 60 cents (euro) per GB, this unit will increase that number by roughly a third. Overall the M6e Black is an impressive product with fantastic looks. As such I'd be happy to grant it a top pick award as this is truly next-gen performance available right now.
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