X
CNET logo Why You Can Trust CNET

Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement

Plextor M6V SSD review: Fast performance at a low cost

Plextor's latest M6V solid-state drive might just be the deal you've been waiting for to upgrade your hard drive-based computer.

Dong Ngo SF Labs Manager, Editor / Reviews
CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He now manages CNET San Francisco Labs, reviews 3D printers, networking/storage devices, and also writes about other topics from online security to new gadgets and how technology impacts the life of people around the world.
Dong Ngo
5 min read

Plextor's new M6V solid-state drive (SSD) is, according to the company, a lower-tier product compared to its older sibling, the M6S. However, the new SSD turns out to be superior both in terms of performance and cost.

7.9

Plextor M6V SSD

The Good

The Plextor M6V solid-state drive is an affordable SSD with excellent performance.

The Bad

The drive has a short three-year warranty and comes devoid of any accessories or software.

The Bottom Line

As one of the fastest budget solid-state drives, the Plextor M6V is a very good replacement SSD for any computer that still uses a traditional hard drive.

Among budget SSDs, the new M6V is one of the fastest I've tested and carries a suggested price of just $66 (£34.51), $100 (£57.52) and $190 for 128GB, 256GB and 512GB (not available in the UK) capacities, respectively. (Pricing for Australia will be announced at a later time.) As with all SSDs, you can expect the actual street price to be even lower.

On the downside, the M6V doesn't include any software or accessories, such as a drive-cloning application or a bracket to better fit inside a desktop computer. What's more, its 3-year warranty is short, albeit standard for an SSD of its tier.

All things considered, if you have a computer that runs on a traditional hard drive, the M6V is an upgrade that's totally worth the investment. For more options on excellent SSDs, check out this list of the top SSDs on the market.

The M6V is a standard SATA internal drive. Dong Ngo/CNET

Design

The M6V is a standard internal SSD, with the same 2.5-inch design usually reserved only for laptop hard drives. This drive, however, can be used wherever you'd normally use a standard SATA hard drive, either in a desktop or laptop. It supports the latest SATA 3 (6 Gbps) and will also work with SATA 2 and SATA.

At 7mm thick, the M6V will fit inside most notebooks easily. If you have desktop computer, however, it might be tricky since the drive doesn't include an adapter bracket to increase its physical size to that of a 3.5-inch (desktop) hard drive. This is not a big deal, though, since with no moving parts an SSD can be left loose inside the computer, or you can get a bracket of your own for a few dollars at the store. The drive doesn't include drive-cloning software, either, so you will need to get that on your own. The good news is there are many free options for this, including my personal favorite, Macrium Reflect.

The M6V doesn't support encryption, which is a common shortcoming of budget SSDs. However, encryption, which protects data in case of theft or loss, is only needed in a corporate or business environment and only works with motherboards that also have this feature. Most home computers don't support hardware encryption of this type at all.

Features

capture.jpg
Enlarge Image
capture.jpg
You can quickly view and adjust the M6V's PlexTurbo 3.0 feature. Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET

The Plextor M6V has one major unique feature called PlexTurbo 3.0. This is smart-caching technology for Plextor's SSDs that delivers a performance boost by automatically detecting both frequently accessed and less frequently accessed data and organizing it in an optimal way for read and write operations.

The M6V's PlexTurbo 3.0 uses up to 1GB of its storage space for caching. It then saves the latest used data and then preloads it into the cache area when you reboot the computer, allowing the machine to boot and perform frequent tasks faster. On top of that, if you combine two or more M6V units in a RAID setup, PlexTurbo 3.0 supports cache-sharing among these drives. This means, depending on the type of RAID configurations, the effect of PlexTurbo 3.0 can be enhanced even further.

Plextor M6V SSD's specs

128GB256GB512GB
Design 2.5-inch, 7mm2.5-inch, 7mm2.5-inch, 7mm
Interface SATA3, SATA2, SATASATA3, SATA2, SATASATA3, SATA2, SATA
Controller Silicon Motion SMI-2246Silicon Motion SMI-2246Silicon Motion SMI-2246
NAND Toshiba A15nm MLCToshiba A15nm MLCToshiba A15nm MLC
Included Cache 256MB256MB512MB
Sequential Read 535 MB/s535 MB/s535 MB/s
Sequential Write 170 MB/s335 MB/s455 MB/s
Random Read IOPS 81K83K83K
Random Write IOPS 42K80K80K
Endurance (total data written) 73TB73TB73TB
Power requirement 5V 1.0A5V 1.0A5V 1.0A
Suggested US retail price $66 $100 $190
Warranty 3-year3-year3-year

Pricing

The Plextor M6V is one of the most competitively priced SSDs on the market. At launch it carries the suggested price of just $100, and $190 for 256GB and 512GB, respectively, effectively costing less than $0.40 per gigabyte -- and it's highly likely that within a month its street price will be even lower.

SSD US street price (in dollars per GB)

WD Black 2 Dual Drive $0.18Transcend SSD370S (256GB) $0.35Samsung SSD 850 Evo (250GB) $0.36Crucial MX200 (250GB) $0.36Plextor M6V (512GB) $0.37OCZ Trion 100 (240GB) $0.37SanDisk Ultra II (240GB) $0.38OCZ ARC 100 (240GB) $0.38Plextor M6V (256GB) $0.39Plextor M6S (256GB) $0.43Plextor M6V (128GB) $0.52OCZ Vector 180 (240GB) $0.52Samsung SSD 850 Evo (120GB) $0.59Intel SSD 730 (240GB) $0.82
Note: Measured in dollars per gigabyte, based on current price on Amazon.com. MSRP used for reviewed product. The lower number indicates better value.

Performance

Plextor markets the M6V as a "value drive" that "may not be the fastest on the market" and this turned out to be true in my testing. The drive indeed didn't top the charts. However, among budget drives I've reviewed, it's the fastest and in some tests, its scores were even close to those of much more expensive higher-tier SSDs.

In sequential tests, as a second drive performing only writing or reading, the M6V scored 229MBps for writing, about average on the charge. For reading, however, it did much better at 326MBps, well above the average. When working as a host drive and performing both writing and reading at the same time, the M6V scored 185MBps, also well above the average and faster than all other budget drives I've seen. The recently reviewed and similarly-priced OCZ Trion 100, for example, scored just 124MBps in this test.

CNET Labs' SSD data transfer performance

Crucial MX200 190.3 433.49 412.46Intel SSD 730 Series 189.52 265.53 266.84Plextor M6V 185.41 229.27 325.53Samsung SSD 850 Evo 182.78 114.45 205.63OCZ Vector 180 175.3 347.32 353.67WD Black 2 Dual Drive 174.65 114.66 228.2Toshiba Q300 165.67 355.6 202.7OCZ ACR 100 163.53 289.39 385.71Plextor M6S 155.34 144.78 227.89Transcend SSD370S 150.69 311.73 390.08Transcend SSD720 145.26 230.58 269.55SanDisk Ultra II 126.49 210.21 319.23OCZ Trion 100 124.19 185.35 352.32
  • As OS Drive (Read and Write)
  • As Secondary Drive (Write only)
  • As Secondary Drive (Read Only)
Note: Measured in megabytes per second. Longer bars indicate better performance.

For random access, I used the PC Mark 8 benchmark suite to test the M6V and it also did very well. The drive has the storage score of 4957 and the 245.57MB/s, both significantly higher than most of its peers.

PC Mark 8 overall storage performance

Crucial MX200 4968 256.94Sandisk Extreme Pro 4957 244.17Plextor M6V 4957 245.57OCZ ACR 100 series 4948 203.72Transcend SSD370S 4927 210.4SanDisk Ultra II 4922 208.55OCZ Vector 180 4921 204.04Toshiba Q300 4894 186.68OCZ Trion 100 4875 175.38
  • Storage Score
  • Storage bandwith (MB/s)
Note: Longer bars indicate better performance.

A similar thing happened with PC Mark 8 for applications; the M6V consistently proved itself to be faster than most drives of its tier. It's important to note, however, the differences between SSDs in application performance are minimal: a few fractions of a second up to a few seconds. Generally, the gap is only significant between an SSD and a traditional hard drive.

PC Mark 8 storage application performance

Crucial MX200 58 133.6 361 28.2 9.2 9.2Plextor M6V 58.3 133.5 362.1 28.3 9.2 9.2Transcend SSD370S 58.6 134.3 363.9 28.4 9.3 9.3SanDisk Ultra II 58.8 134.6 363.1 28.4 9.3 9.3OCZ ARC 100 series 58.9 134.7 362.3 28.4 9.4 9.3OCZ Vector 180 59 134.8 361.2 28.5 9.4 9.4Toshiba Q300 59.1 135.2 362.2 28.6 9.4 9.4OCZ Trion 100 59.2 136.2 367 28.5 9.4 9.5Standard Laptop HDD 138.9 366 565.19 51.7 26.6 27.4
  • World of Warcraft
  • Battlefield 3
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
Note: Measured in seconds. Shorter bars indicate better performance.

Conclusion

The Plextor is the new high in low-cost solid-state storage. The new drive delivers excellent performance while keeping the cost low. Keep in mind though, the drive comes in a spartan package with a short 3-year warranty.

For SSDs, the warranty time the second most important factor, after performance. It gives you the peace of mind in case something happens to the drive. However, drives with more features and longer warranties tend to cost more. The Samsung SSD 850 Evo, for example, has a 5-year warranty and at launch was priced much higher than the Plextor (currently, after 10 months on the market still costs a few cents per gigabyte more on average). Other higher-end drives that have a 10-year warranty, such as the Samsung SSD 850 Pro, or theSanDisk Extreme Pro cost even more.

That said, if you're in the market for a cheap replacement drive to upgrade your hard drive-based computer, the Plextor M6V is definitely a good buy.

7.9

Plextor M6V SSD

Score Breakdown

Setup 8Features 7Performance 8Support 7