Plextor M8Pe 512GB M2 NVMe SSD review - Specifications & Features

Specifications & Features

Plextor will release these puppies all as MS unit, but separated into three lines. One with just the bare M2 unit (M8PeGN), another one with the M2 unit + heatsink cover (M8PeG) and then the last series will be the M2 unit mounted into a PCI Express daughter card (M8PeY). With NVMe 1.2 support, the M8Pe significantly reduces access latency to provide faster data transmission speeds. Combined with the PCIe Gen 3 x4 interface, the M8Pe can provide breakthrough performances with maximum continuous sequential read/write speeds of up to 2500/1400 MB per second, and random read/write speeds of up to 280,000/240,000 IOPS.
  

Plextor is to offer four volume size versions of the products initially, the 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1 TB models. So the sample that have arrived in our test lab is the 512GB M2 version of the drive with that heatsink slash cover. The M8Pe series will come with MLC NAND flash memory from the 15nm Toshiba NAND node.  Given its size, this has to be vertical stacked nand or V-nand.

So what is V-NAND? 

V-NAND is physical vertical NAND cell stacking not to be confused with chip stacking in a multi-chip package. In V-NAND, NAND layers, not chips, are stacked in a single IC. The good news is continued cost reduction, smaller die sizes and more capacity per NAND chip. Also, installed NAND toolsets in the wafer fabs can, for the most part, be reused, thereby extending the useful life of fab equipment. Current V-NAND stacks have 32 and even 48 cell layers vertically over one another, rather than decreasing cell dimensions to fit onto a fixed horizontal space, resulting in higher density and better performance with a smaller footprint. 64 layer (BICS) actually is going into production this year as well. With the M.2 form factor SSDs, more consumers with desktops or ultra-thin PCs can benefit from best-in-class performance and reliability of the technology.

So what is NVMe?

NVMe is also known as Non-Volatile Memory Express or the Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification. The idea behind NVMe is to improve the storage stack by optimizing the way an application accesses a Flash device. NVMe cuts corners by removing components within the I/O path like that good old fashioned RAID controller. To be able to make use of the new NVMe based devices inside your PC you have to have a proper driver installed, Windows 7, 8 and 10 have this NVMe protocol driver embedded. This enables NVMe devices to function within the existing operating system I/O stack protocol. On the next page we'll talk a little more about NVMe.

I just pulled some numbers from some online e-tailers. Plextor is able to keep the prices very competitive. These are street prices in the "initial launch wave"

• Plextor PX-128M8PeG (w/heatsink) 128GB M.2 (PCI-e 3.0 x4) @ 1.600/500MB/s - 75 EURO
• Plextor PX-256M8PeG (w/heatsink) 256GB M.2 (PCI-e 3.0 x4) @ 2.000/900MB/s - 120 EURO
• Plextor PX-512M8PeG (w/heatsink) 512GB M.2 (PCI-e 3.0 x4) @ 2.300/1.300MB/s - 225 EURO
• Plextor PX-1TM8PeG (w/heatsink) 1TB M.2 (PCI-e 3.0 x4) @ 2.500/1.400MB/s - 389 EURO

Dimension (L/W/H): 80 x 22.85 x 4.79* mm / 3.15 x 0.9 x 0.19 inch Weight: 13g / 0.46oz