Plextor Displays New M.2 NGFF PCIe Ultrabook SSD With 770MB/s Speeds – Computex 2013 Update

As new as Ultrabook form factor PCIe is to the SSD world, LSI SandForce isn’t the only at Computex 2013 to display an ultrabook SSD capable of speeds well above anything we are seeing in present PC systems.

On display at the Plextor booth is their NGFF M.2 (PCIe) SSD which will be available in capacities of 128, 256 and 512GB and is capable of performance of 770MB/s read and 550MB/s write.  This is higher than any SSD we see on the market right now and, once again, blows away SATA standards.  The M.2 is also capable of 100,000 IOPS read and 85,000 IOPS write and is being displayed in two form factors. You will notice that the controller is not visible in these pictures and there is good reason.

In an early morning conversation with our friend Anthony Liu, RD/PM Director at Lite-On IT (Plextor), we learned that this SSD will be using a new Marvell 88SS9183 eight channel PCIe controller which supports PCIe Gen 2×2 for the latest Haswell platform. The M.2 will be available for oem customers by end August , however, Anthony believes that consumer availability for this or any similar SSD will be much later, due to demand of systems limited to the new Haswell platform.

Try as we might, Plextor would not allow pictures of the reverse side of the SSD or pictures of the new controller.