Plextor Announces M8Pe M.2 NVMe SSD Family – Computex 2016 Update

This morning at Computex 2016 in Taipei, Plextor announced its newest M8 M.2 Series of NVMe SSDs, these relying on performance through Marvell’s newest 88SS1093 controller.  The M8 M.2 SSD will be available with or without heatsink, or in a HHHL PCIe form factor that ensures compatibility for those without M.2 slot equipped PC systems.  This first photo displays the M8PeG with its colorful red, white and black heatsink attached.

Just like each and every other Plextor SSD, the M8 contains Toshiba Toggle Mode NAND Flash memory and on this particular SSD, 15nm MLC is used.  The M8 M.2 is PCIe 3.0 X4 (4 lane) and of a 2280 (80mm) form factor, and will be available in 128, 256, 512 and 1TB capacities.  Speeds will reach 2500MB/s read and 1400MB/s write with up to 250,000 IOPS read and 140,000 IOPS write performance being dependent upon capacity as shown here:

Naming convention for the 3 variants follow M8Pe for just the M.2 drive, M8PeG for the M.2 with heatsink and M8PeY for the HHHL version, the HHHL version also containing a row of red lights on top that light when disk activity is occurring.  This SSD will be released some time later this year and comes with a 5 year warranty.  Price points have not been set as of the date of this report.

This SSD was in use on a display PC during our visit, the following Crystal DiskMark result shown:

Brand new to the SSD world for Plextor is also their newest EX1 Portable SSD which will be USB 3.1 and available in 128, 256 and 512GB capacities.  This portable SSD will also have come with a 5 year warranty.

The EX1 will contain the Via Labs VL716 controller, and using USB 3.1 Type C so performance is listed at 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write.  This SSD has a MTBF of 240 million hours and pre-testing of this device includes Plextor’s own 1008 hour Zero-Failure Zero-Errot Test standard.  Pricing and exact release dates have yet to be disclosed.