Plextor M9Pe M.2 NVMe SSD Review (1TB)

HDTUNE

HD Tune is a Hard Disk Utility with many functions from error checking, health testing (S.M.A.R.T.), and of course benchmarking. To build upon our real world write test we also looked to see where the write speeds leveled off to by using HD Tune Pro. If SLC caching is being utilized, this test will typically show it.

Finally, taking a look at how it performs under HDTune’s full write test, we can see that the SLC cache quickly fills and write performance will degrade to about 800MB/s.

REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s without surprise that Toshiba’s latest 3D TLC NAND enables the M9Pe to achieve top-tier performance numbers. It was able to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 3,162MB/s and 2,090MB/s under our testing. We weren’t able to extract the rated 400K/300K IOPS, but 230K/270K IOPS from AS SSD is still more than adequate for any desktop application. Speaking of desktop applications, our next phase of testing included a standard run of PCMark 8’s Storage test as well as an extended run to see just how well the M9Pe could perform under real-world workloads. The M9Pe completed the standard run with an average bandwidth of 562MB/s, which ranks it just above the Samsung 960 EVO and in line with the Corsair NX and MP500s. Once it tackled PCMark 8’s extended test, however, we saw that the M9Pe has a weak point, recovering from heavy workloads. After being bombarded in the heavy workload phases, the M9Pe was unable to recover fast enough to keep up with many of its rivals during the recovery phases, but at least it was fairly consistent throughout and at least for most, a workload such as that won’t ever exist.

Moving on to our next phases of testing, we focused on its write speed and power consumption. Because the Plextor M9Pe utilizes an SLC cache, it’s write performance can degrade over time. Our 30GB transfer showed this perfectly. During our 30GB transfer, it averaged 1,079MB/s, which, isn’t the best, but is still faster than most of the TLC based competition. In HDTune, write speeds fell off to about 800MB/s after a few GB of data as well.

Finally, efficiency wasn’t a strong suit of the M9Pe. While it outperformed many other TLC based NVMe SSDs in our MB/s per watt consumed chart, at idle the power consumption is very high, even when ASPM is enabled. So, if you were thinking of grabbing one of these for your notebook, you might want to second guess your decision because there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the M9Pe’s power consumption.

The Plextor M9Pe is the latest top-tier product from Plextor. Though it has some knocks against it, it still delivers performance that can best the 960 EVO, carries a longer 5-year warranty, and has some fairly competitive MSRPs. On top of this, you have three different model options to chose from, the M9Pe(Y) model even comes with RGB lighting! What’s not to like? Overall, we are more than pleased with the Plextor M9Pe and have no qualms about awarding it our Gold Seal.

Check Out the Plextor M9Pe NVMe SSD at Amazon!