Plextor M6e 256GB PCIe SSD Review - Breaking the Chains of SATA III

Introduction

While not available in the US yet, Plextor's M6e SSDs are coming. This isn't our first go around with the Marvell 88SS9183 PCIe-to-flash controller, but it should be the first to come in retail form. The Marvell 88SS9183 bypasses the aging SATA III bus and the throughput limits that come with it. By interfacing the flash with the PCI Express bus, the SSD has a direct path to the CPU and a high ceiling that scales to incredible levels via lanes.

The Plextor M6e SSD uses two PCIe lanes, and the adapter card fits in nearly every modern desktop motherboard. Most of us rarely use the smaller PCIe slots in our systems unless adding a video capture card or add-on sound card. The M6e gives you another option, and this one delivers storage performance in excess of 700 MB/s.

Plextor targeted the gaming market with the M6e SSD. Gamers have a long history of being on the cutting edge of computing technology, and Plextor made sure this SSD was right on the blade. The dual BIOS boot feature allows for faster system booting with UEFI support. One of the largest complaints about add-on storage controllers is the additional time to desktop since the system has to initialize another component, but UEFI allows all of the components to initialize at the same time. The legacy BIOS support also means older systems without UEFI can still use the M6e, as well.

Before we get too far, let's check out the specifications and then circle back to the advanced features offered by the M6e.