Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD Review

Powered by Marvell's 88SS1093 NVMe controller and fortified with the industries best heat sink, Plextor's M8PeY AIC SSD is sure to please.

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Manufacturer: Plextor
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The Bottom Line

It's all about moderate workload performance, and the Plextor M8PeY delivers the goods.

Introduction, Drive Specifications, Pricing & Availability

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It took us a bit to get it all setup, but we are now utilizing both Intel and AMD Ryzen platforms for our SSD testing. Ryzen is becoming wildly popular and as such we believe that SSD benchmarks on AMD's newest platform are a must.

We are excited by Plextor's first NVMe SSD, the M8Pe, because it is the first SSD to come across our bench that is based on Marvell's 88SS1093 Gen3 x4 NVMe controller. Marvell controllers are always exquisite pieces of engineering and we expect the 88SS1093 is no exception. Marvell controllers are supplied without firmware so buyers can customize the performance of the controller as they see fit. This means you won't be seeing Marvell controlled SSD's coming from smaller companies that do not have in-house firmware engineers.

Marvell's 88SS1093 NVMe SSD controller:

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The M8PeY pairs Marvell's 88SS1093 8-channel "Eldora" controller with premium Toshiba 15mn MLC planar flash, a massive solid aluminum heat sink and Plextor's own custom firmware. The looks of the drive are as impressive as its heft (1/2 pound). In addition, for those of you that love flashy LED lighting, the M8PeY is just what you are looking for because it has plenty of it.

Plextor is marketing the M8PeY as a superior gaming SSD due to its flashy looks, superior cooling characteristics and sequential read/write performance. Plextor prides themselves on superior quality and backs it up with an industry best 2.4 million hour MTBF rating. Features include Plextor's exclusive TrueSpeed and TrueProtect technologies. TrueSpeed technology keeps long-term SSD performance at like-new speeds after periods of use and when the SSD is nearly full. TrueProtect technology is a multi-layered error checking mechanism automatically executed by the firmware. TrueProtect keeps data access error-free. Additionally, data accuracy is insured by Marvell's latest third generation LDPC bit correction which also provides extended endurance for the flash array.

There are three variants in the M8Pe Series. All three are based on the same M.2 x 2280 SSD module. The M8PeGN is a bare M.2 SSD. The M8PeG is an M.2 module with a small heat spreader and the model we have on the bench today, the M8PeY. The M8PeY has the M.2 SSD mounted on an HHHL AIC along with that massive solid aluminum heat sink we mentioned earlier.

Specifications

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The Plextor M8Pe series NVMe SSD is available in four capacities: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. The 256GB M8PeY we have on the bench today sports the following specifications:

  • Sequential Read: up to 2,000 MB/s
  • Sequential Write: up to 900 MB/s
  • Max 4K Random Read Speed: up to 210,000 IOPS @ QD32
  • Max 4K Random Write Speed: up to 230,000 IOPS @ QD32
  • Endurance: up to 384 TBW
  • MTBF: 2.4 Million Hours
  • Warranty: 5-Year Limited Warranty
  • SMART
  • TRIM
  • Garbage Collection

The 256GB M8PeY is currently selling at Amazon and Newegg for: $169.99

Drive Details

Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD

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The drive ships in rather large attractive black themed packaging. The front of the packaging advertises the capacity of the enclosed SSD, its five-year warranty and NVMe interface.

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The back of the packaging lists some of the M8PeY's attributes and factory performance specifications.

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The drive is well protected by foam padding. The drive ships with both full height and half height mounting brackets.

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The top of the AIC is fully covered by the black and red solid aluminum heat sink. The White triangle is plastic and it is backlit with white LED's. The red portion of the heat sink is also plastic.

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The back of the AIC's PCB is devoid of surface mounted components. The heat sink on the opposite side is attached with four screws, one of which is covered with a tamper evident sticker.

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Removing the heat sink exposes the M.2 SSD and also voids the warranty. There is a row of built-in LED's that runs along the top edge of the card. There are more LED's in a triangle shape that backlight the plastic triangle that is attached to the heat sink.

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There is a thermal strip affixed to the underside of the heat sink that wicks heat from the drive.

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The M.2 module itself is a single sided 20mm x 80mm (2280) design. There are two 128GB 15nm Toshiba flash packages, a 512MB LPDDR3 Samsung DRAM package, and the Marvell 88SS1093 NVMe controller housed on this side of the PCB.

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The back of the SSD's PCB has no components.

Test System Setup & Drive Properties

Jon's Consumer PCIe SSD Intel Review Test System Specifications

Jon's Consumer PCIe SSD AMD Ryzen Review Test System Specifications

We would like to thank ASRock, Crucial, Intel, Corsair, RamCity, IN WIN, and Seasonic for making our test system possible.

Drive Properties

Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD OS Disk 75% Full (Intel)

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Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD OS Disk 75% Full (AMD Ryzen)

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The majority of our testing is performed with our test drive as our boot volume. Our boot volume is 75% full for all OS Disk "C" drive testing to replicate a typical consumer OS volume implementation. We feel that most of you will be utilizing your SSDs for your boot volume and that presenting you with results from an OS volume is more relevant than presenting you with empty secondary volume results.

System settings: Cstates and Speed stepping are both disabled in our systems BIOS. Windows High-Performance power plan is enabled. Windows write caching is enabled, and Windows buffer flushing is disabled. We are utilizing Windows 10 Pro 64-bit OS (Build 14393) for all of our testing except for our MOP (Maxed-Out Performance) benchmarks where we switch to Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit (Intel Only). Empty Windows 10 benchmark screenshots will also be shown on our MOP page for both Intel and AMD Ryzen Platforms.

Intel screenshots will be shown first followed by AMD Ryzen throughout the review.

Synthetic Benchmarks – ATTO & Anvil Storage Utilities

ATTO

Version and / or Patch Used: 3.05

ATTO is a timeless benchmark used to provide manufacturers with data used for marketing storage products. When evaluating ATTO performance we focus on the drive's performance curve.

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The M8PeY meets or exceeds factory sequential specifications on both platforms. The Intel platform has a major advantage at 4K write transfers. Both platforms exhibit the same drop in performance at 48 and 64MB transfers.

Sequential Write

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Graphing the performance curve shows the commanding lead that the Intel has over AMD's Ryzen platform. Comparing performance to the rest of the SSDs in our test pool shows the M8PeY is outperformed by all but Intel's 600p.

Sequential Read

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The M8PeY performs similarly on both platforms when reading sequential data. This time the M8PeY outperforms both of the Intel SSDs that we included in our test pool. The M8PeY delivers a higher sequential read speed than Samsung's 950 Pro, however, the 950 Pro has a much better performance curve.

Anvil Storage Utilities

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1.0

Anvil's Storage Utilities is a storage benchmark designed to measure the storage performance of SSDs. The Standard Storage Benchmark performs a series of tests; you can run a full test or just the read or write test, or you can run a single test, i.e. 4k QD16. When evaluating performance with Anvils, we focus on total score. When evaluating NVMe SSDs we are typically looking for a minimum total score of over 10K.

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Scoring

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The M8PeY can't hit 10K on either platform. It comes close on our Intel platform, but falls way short on our Ryzen platform. Most of the scoring difference between the platforms stems from Ryzen's inferior random write performance. In terms of overall score, the M8PeY is able to outscore the 950 Pro, and Intel's 600p.

(Anvil) Read IOPS through Queue Depth Scale

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With our Intel platform, we are able to attain 168K random read IOPS at QD32. With our AMD Ryzen platform, we are able to attain 166K random read IOPS at QD32. Keep in mind that this is our OS disk and it is 75% full.

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The M8PeY performs similarly on both of our testing platforms. The Intel platform maintains a slight performance advantage at lower queue depths. All of the competing drives in our test pool, with the exception of the Intel 600p, are delivering better performance.

(Anvil) Write IOPS through Queue Scale

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With our Intel platform, we are able to attain 186K random write IOPS at QD32. With our AMD Ryzen platform, we are able to attain 189K random write IOPS at QD32. Keep in mind that this is our OS disk and it is 75% full.

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At queue depths below 32, the M8PeY as expected performs significantly better on our Intel platform. Random write performance on Ryzen platforms is where the greatest performance disparity in comparison to Intel platforms will manifest itself throughout our testing.

Synthetic Benchmarks - CrystalDiskMark & AS SSD

CrystalDiskMark

Version and / or Patch Used: 3.0 Technical Preview

CrystalDiskMark is disk benchmark software that allows us to benchmark 4K and 4K queue depths with accuracy. Note: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0 Technical Preview was used for these tests since it offers the ability to measure native command queuing at QD4. When evaluating CDM results, we focus on 4K random performance at QD1 and QD4.

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The M8PeY running on our Intel platform digests CDM's data particularly well. Overall, it performs fourth best, coming in behind the 950 Pro, 960 EVO and RD400. Of particular note, the M8PeY really delivers the goods when reading sequential data at QD1 and does so on both our Intel and Ryzen platforms. Running on Ryzen, the M8PeY has trouble dealing with CDM's data pattern at QD32 where it is only able to muster 372.2 MB/s

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The AMD Ryzen platform is at a real disadvantage in comparison with Intel when writing random data.

AS SSD

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.8.5611.39791

AS SSD determines the performance of SSDs. The tool contains four synthetic as well as three practice tests. The synthetic tests are to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. We evaluate AS SSD performance in terms of overall score. We are looking for a minimum score of 2,000 when evaluating NVMe SSDs

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AS SSD is a demanding test, and the M8PeY exceeds our minimum standard of 2,000 on both platforms. The Intel platform again has a distinct advantage where it matters most; 4K QD1. The Ryzen platform has the advantage when writing sequential data as manifested by AS SSD. Compared to the rest of the drives in our test pool, the M8PeY can only outscore Intel's 600p. Now that we are done with our synthetic testing, let's move on to our real-world moderate workload testing and see how the M8PeY stacks up against the competition.

Benches (OS) - Vantage, PCMark 7, PCMark 8 & SYSmark 2014 SE

Moderate Workload Model

We categorize these tests as indicative of a moderate workload environment.

PCMark Vantage - Hard Disk Tests

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.2.0.0

The reason we like PCMark Vantage is because the recorded traces are played back without system stops. What we see is the raw performance of the drive. This allows us to see a marked difference between scoring that other trace-based benchmarks do not exhibit. An example of a marked difference in scoring on the same drive would be empty vs. filled vs. steady state.

We run Vantage three ways. The first run is with the OS drive 75% full to simulate a lightly used OS volume filled with data to an amount we feel is common for most users. The second run is with the OS volume written into a "Steady State" utilizing SNIA's consumer guidelines. Steady state testing simulates a drive's performance similar to that of a drive that been subjected to consumer workloads for extensive amounts of time. The third run is a Vantage HDD test with the test drive attached as an empty, lightly used secondary device.

OS Volume 75% Full - Lightly Used

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OS Volume 75% Full - Steady State

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Secondary Volume Empty - FOB

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There's a big difference between an empty drive, one that's 75% full/used, and one that's in a steady state.

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The important scores to pay attention to are "OS Volume Steady State" and "OS Volume 75% full." These two categories are most important because they are indicative of typical of consumer user states. When a drive is in a steady state, it means garbage collection is running at the same time it's reading/writing.

Focusing in on 75% full and steady state performance, reveals another side to the M8PeY. It is a powerhouse when running consumer type workloads. On our Intel platform, the M8PeY takes all but the mighty Samsung 950 Pro to the woodshed. It also delivers the goods surprisingly well on our Ryzen platform. This is the most important test we've run to this point and the M8PeY is shining brightly.

PCMark 7 - System Storage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.4.0

We will look to Raw System Storage scoring for evaluation because it's done without system stops and, therefore, allows us to see significant scoring differences between drives.

OS Volume 75% Full - Lightly Used

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PCMark 7 more accurately represents real-world performance than does Vantage. The M8PeY, running on our Intel platform again delivers outstanding moderate workload performance. Only the RD400 and 950 Pro are able to outperform the Plextor offering. We believe that this is largely due to the unfortunate fact that the M8PeY badly needs a better driver than the in-box MS Windows 10 NVMe driver, which is well known for its inherent inferiority. The M8PeY running on our Ryzen platform does not fare nearly as well. This is due to the Ryzen platforms inferior low queue depth random performance.

PCMark 8 - Storage Bandwidth

Version and / or Patch Used: 2.4.304

We use PCMark 8 Storage benchmark to test the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and a selection of popular games. You can test the system drive or any other recognized storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices.

OS Volume 75% Full - Lightly Used

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PCMark 8 is the most intensive moderate workload simulation we run. With respect to moderate consumer type workloads, this test is what we consider the best indicator of a drive's performance. We decided to clearly demonstrate just how inferior the Windows 10 NVMe driver actually is, and hopefully Plextor or Marvell will take notice and do something about this travesty. When we run an alternative NVMe driver on the M8PeY, the drive goes from one of the lowest performing, to second best. We aren't going to elaborate on what "alternative" NVMe driver we used, other than to say you can typically force any NVMe driver onto any NVMe SSD through device manager and it will run perfectly.

Based on our PCMark 8 results, we believe that Marvell's 88SS1093 NVMe controller is an elite controller that just needs a good NVMe driver for Windows 10 to unleash its true potential. If you by chance are still running Windows 8.1, this is not an issue because the NVMe driver built into Window's 8.1 is actually a good driver, however, who in the heck still runs Window's 8.1? If you look at our Server 2012 R2 MOP results, you will see evidence that the Windows 8.1 NVMe driver is a good driver because it is the same NVMe driver that is built into Server 2012 R2.

BAPCo SYSmark 2014 SE System Performance

Version and / or Patch Used: 2.0.0.70

SYSmark 2014 SE is considered the gold standard for testing system performance because it is an application based benchmark. This test gives us the ultimate in real-world results because it utilizes actual applications running on the system, instead of playing back recorded traces. If you want to know what kind of impact a particular SSD will have on your system's overall performance; this test will show you.

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Disk performance has the greatest impact on the Responsiveness score, so that is what we will focus on.

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Our system is much more powerful than the calibration system used by BAPCo, so we ran an OCZ TL100 120GB SATA III SSD to establish a comparison point on our test system. We will be running this test going forward and we will add drives to our chart as we test them. We have this test up and running smoothly on our Intel platform, but so far, we can't get the test to complete on our Ryzen platform without crashing the system.

Samsung's powerful PM961 1TB SSD (Review coming soon) edges out the much smaller in capacity M8PeY 256GB. Again, we would like to see Plextor produce a proprietary NVMe driver as it would have a significantly positive impact on the overall performance of the SSD.

Benchmarks (Secondary) - IOPS, Response & Transfer Rate

Iometer – Maximum IOPS

Version and / or Patch Used: Iometer 2014

We use Iometer to measure high queue depth performance. (No Partition)

Max IOPS Read

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Max IOPS Write

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We test NVMe SSDs using eight threads at QD32, or QD256. We do this because we want to see what the drive can generate at its maximum attainable queue depth. Maximum random read performance is similar between the two platforms, but once again, we find Intel outperforming AMD by a huge margin when writing random data.

Iometer – Disk Response

Version and / or Patch Used: Iometer 2014

We use Iometer to measure disk response times. Disk response times are measured at an industry accepted standard of 4K QD1 for both write and read. Each test runs twice for 30 seconds consecutively, with a 5-second ramp-up before each test. We partition the drive/array as a secondary device for this testing.

Avg. Write Response

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Avg. Read Response

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Disk response is significantly better (lower) on the Intel platform.

DiskBench – Transfer Rate

Version and / or Patch Used: 2.6.2.0

We use DiskBench to time a 28.6GB block (9,882 files in 1,247 folders) composed primarily of incompressible sequential and random data as it's transferred from our Toshiba RD400 1TB NVME SSD to our test drive. We then read from a 6GB zip file that's part of our 28.6GB data block to determine the test drive's read transfer rate. Our system is restarted prior to the read test to clear any cached data, ensuring an accurate test result.

Write Transfer Rate

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Read Transfer Rate

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We recently upgraded our test system to Windows 10 build 14393. With that upgrade, write transfer rates almost doubled. The reason for this, as far as we know, is that CPU power switching modes have been relaxed on the latest version of Windows 10. We included the NVMe drives we've tested to date on this build of Windows 10. If you needed a good reason to upgrade to Windows 10 build 14393; this is a good reason.

Read transfer rates are a bit lower than we would like to see. Again, the Intel platform offers better performance than our AMD Ryzen platform.

Benchmarks (Secondary Volume) – PCMark 8 Extended

Futuremark PCMark 8 Extended

Heavy Workload Model

PCMark 8's consistency test simulates an extended duration heavy workload environment. PCMark 8 has built-in, command line executed storage testing. The PCMark 8 Consistency test measures the performance consistency and the degradation tendency of a storage system.

The Storage test workloads are repeated. Between each repetition, the storage system is bombarded with a usage that causes degraded drive performance. In the first part of the test, the cycle continues until a steady degraded level of performance has been reached. (Steady State)

In the second part, the recovery of the system is tested by allowing the system to idle and measuring the performance after 5-minute long intervals. (Internal drive maintenance: Garbage Collection (GC)) The test reports the performance level at the start, the degraded steady-state, and the recovered state, as well as the number of iterations required to reach the degraded state and the recovered state.

We feel Futuremark's Consistency Test is the best test ever devised to show the true performance of solid state storage in an extended duration heavy workload environment. This test takes on average 13 to 17 hours to complete and writes somewhere between 450GB and 14,000GB of test data depending on the drive. If you want to know what an SSDs steady state performance is going to look like during a heavy workload, this test will show you.

Here's a breakdown of Futuremark's Consistency Test:

Precondition phase:

1. Write to the drive sequentially through up to the reported capacity with random data.

2. Write the drive through a second time (to take care of overprovisioning).

Degradation phase:

1. Run writes of random size between 8*512 and 2048*512 bytes on random offsets for 10 minutes.

2. Run performance test (one pass only).

3. Repeat 1 and 2 for 8 times, and on each pass increase the duration of random writes by 5 minutes.

Steady state phase:

1. Run writes of random size between 8*512 and 2048*512 bytes on random offsets for 50 minutes.

2. Run performance test (one pass only).

3. Repeat 1 and 2 for 5 times.

Recovery phase:

1. Idle for 5 minutes.

2. Run performance test (one pass only).

3. Repeat 1 and 2 for 5 times.

Storage Bandwidth

PCMark 8's Consistency test provides a ton of data output that we use to judge a drive's performance.

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We consider steady state bandwidth (the blue bar) our test that carries the most weight in ranking a drive/arrays heavy workload performance. Performance after Garbage Collection (GC) (the orange and red bars) is what we consider the second most important consideration when ranking a drive's performance.

The M8PeY gets hammered on both platforms. It does manage to outperform the 960 EVO and the 600p in a steady state. The lack of any recovery is a bit troubling.

Storage Bandwidth Per Phase

We chart our test subject's storage bandwidth as reported at each of the test's 18 trace iterations. This gives us a good visual perspective of how our test subjects perform as testing progresses. This chart sheds more light on how the drives perform as they progress through the testing phases.

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Total Access Time (Latency)

We chart the total time the disk is accessed as reported at each of the test's 18 trace iterations. This helps shed some light on how the drive performs at each of the 18 phases of this test.

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Disk Busy Time

Disk Busy Time is how long the disk is busy working. We chart the total time the disk is working as reported at each of the tests 18 trace iterations.

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Data Written

We measure the total amount of random data that our test drive/array is capable of writing during the degradation phases of the consistency test. Pre-conditioning data is not included in the total. The total combined time that degradation data is written to the drive/array is 470 minutes. This can be very telling. The better a drive/array can process a continuous stream of random data; the more data will be written.

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Overprovisioning and write latency are the biggest factors that determine the outcome of this portion of the test. Like we saw from the phases above, the M8Pe performs similarly on the Intel and Ryzen platforms. With this portion of the test, the M8PeY does quite well.

Benchmarks (Secondary Volume) – 70/30 Mixed Workload

70/30 Mixed Workload Test (Sledgehammer)

Version and / or Patch Used: Iometer 2014

Heavy Workload Model

This test hammers a drive so hard we've dubbed it "Sledgehammer". Our 70/30 Mixed Workload test is designed to simulate a heavy-duty enthusiast/workstation steady-state environment. We feel that a mix of 70% read/30% write, full random 4K transfers best represents this type of user environment. Our test allows us to see the drive enter into and reach a steady state as the test progresses.

Phase one of the test preconditions the drive for 1 hour with 128K sequential writes. Phase two of the test runs a 70% read/30% write, full random 4K transfer workload on the drive for 1 hour. We log and chart (phase two) IOPS data at 5-second intervals for 1 hour (720 data points). 60 data points = 5 minutes.

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What we like about this test is that it reflects reality. Everything lines up, as it should. Consumer drives don't outperform Enterprise-Class SSDs that were designed for enterprise workloads. Consumer drives based on old technology are not outperforming modern Performance-Class SSDs, etc.

The M8PeY handles this brutal test easily on both platforms. Only the Intel 750 outperforms the M8PeY which is to be expected from an SSD with enterprise DNA.

Maxed-Out Performance (MOP)

This testing is just to see what the drive is capable of in an FOB (Fresh Out of Box) state under optimal conditions. We are utilizing empty volumes of Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit for this testing.

Windows 10 MOP (Intel)

Plextor M8Pe 256GB

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Windows 10 MOP (AMD)

Plextor M8Pe 256GB

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Windows Server 2012 R2 MOP (Intel only)

Plextor M8Pe 256GB

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Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD Review 86
Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD Review 87

Final Thoughts

Plextor M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD Review 88

It has been quite some time since Plextor has given us anything to rave about. We are very happy with the M8PeY mainly because it delivers exceptional moderate workload performance. It also did extremely well with our brutal Sledgehammer test.

These results are testament that Marvell's "Eldora" NVMe controller is indeed a force to be reckoned with. The Eldora controller is a cut above most, because it employs a highly advanced LDPC (low-density parity check) ECC engine. LDPC has lower overhead than standard BCC bit correction and at the same time extends the life of the drives flash array in comparison to BCC bit correction.

We are a bit disappointed that Plextor does not have their own NVMe driver because as we showed with our PCMark 8 storage testing, the M8Pe will greatly benefit from using an other-than Windows 10 NVMe driver. Never-the-less, even with the standard Windows 10 NVMe driver the M8Pe is capable of delivering top notch performance that will have your PC running like a champ whether it be an Intel or AMD Ryzen rig.

We like the fact that Plextor chose to go with high quality Toshiba 15nm MLC flash instead of TLC or even 3D TLC flash. MLC flash performs significantly better than TLC flash in any flavor especially over a Gen3 x4 PCIe interface.

In the case of the M8PeY variant, the drive comes with the best heat sink we've ever seen. There is no way the drive will ever get hot enough to throttle with a half-pound of solid aluminum sucking the heat away. The drive has a sleek attractive look to it that is sure to please.

Plextor's M8PeY M.2 with AIC NVMe PCIe SSD is TweakTown recommended.

Pros:

  • Moderate Workload Performance
  • Premium Components
  • Sleek Design

Cons:

  • Sequential Write
  • Transfer Rate
TweakTown award
Performance 95%
Quality 96%
Features 95%
Value 90%
Overall 94%

The Bottom Line: It's all about moderate workload performance, and the Plextor M8PeY delivers the goods.

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Jon joined the TweakTown team in 2013 and has since reviewed 100s of new storage products. Jon became a computer enthusiast when Windows XP launched. He was into water cooling and benching ATI video cards with modded drivers. Jon has been building computers for others for more than 10 years. Jon became a storage enthusiast the day he first booted an Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD. Look for Jon to bring consumer SSD reviews into the spotlight.

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