Global Awards 2013 - The Year That Plextor Took the World by Storm

Last year ended just like the previous year, with major awards for Plextor’s SSD products. This time the Plextor M5 Pro took the prestigious Hardware Info UK Award 2013 for best SSD. Plextor beat off Samsung in this hard to win award which is based on reader votes. Winning not only shows the excellent reputation of the M5 Pro, but also the growth in Plextor brand awareness.

Throughout the world our SSDs are continuing to gain awards as reviewers praise their stability, performance, and value for money. Let’s have a look at some of the feedback from recent reviews for the high-performance M5 Pro Xtreme, compact M5M mSATA, and entry-level M5S SSDs.

A True Powerhouse – M5 Pro Xtreme

The M5 Pro Xtreme continues its incredible run of awards, collecting no less than 13 in the last three months of the year, bringing the grand total for the SSD (that we’ve noticed) to 86. From Israel to Portugal, the UK to Poland, the M5 Pro’s constantly updated firmware kept it winning awards as 2013 finished. Among the review comments was “Outstanding price/performance combination” – Test PraktikerGermany, “Results of the different benchmarks show that the Plextor claimed specifications are true, SSD IOPS is also incredibly high” – Hardware-Test Denmark, “Excellent all round performance” – Skratchwiz PC UK.

Small and Powerful – M5M

Moving onto the SSD that takes the features and benefits of Plextor’s desktop SSDs and crams them into an ultra-compact form factor - the M5M. In the last quarter the M5M has seen awards in Hardware-Mag Germany, Twaekers BeNeLux, been given an Extreme Performance award by Overclockear Spain, and won HW Legend’s, Italy’s Gold award. HW legend put the M5M through some tough testing and found “High performance in every area” combined with “Good operational stability” they were also impressed with the “Great official support by the manufacturer”. Overclockear Spain went as far as saying that there was nothing that could be improved on.

The Perfect Balance – M5S

In Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia the M5S added to its list of awards. This good value-for-money SSD retains Plextor’s high build quality and offers superb read performance. FranzPC Poland selected the M5S over the OCZ and Samsung for reliability. Norwegian site IT Pro described it as “A product we would warmly recommend.”

Conclusion

We’ve only talked in detail about a few awards from the last few months of 2013, but as you can see from the map above over the past year Plextor has landed awards from all around the world. With so many awards in 2013 Plextor is going from strength to strength.

To review all the awards Plextor swept in 2013 please visit: http://www.goplextor.com/asia/index.php/awards

*Disclosure:An important note, we are just sharing this information to the public, provided by our source (Image Media Phils). Plextor Info / Logos / Photos / Images have respective copyrights.

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Plextor announces M5 Pro Xtreme for Super High Speed Professional SSD

Plextor announced its M5 Pro Xtreme, a professional SSD designed for business and advanced users who demand high performance, reliability, and true data integrity. 

Additional fact from M5 Pro Xtreme, is put it to the test against competitors to show that the performance goes beyond the speed shown in the specs. If its speed one wants in an SSD, The Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme (call the M5 Pro) is the ideal choice. This High performance SSD has become faster and faster with each iteration since it first appeared.

Fast Flash

The Speed of an SSD is affected by the efficiency of the built in NAND Flash. The M5 features on Toggle –mode NANA made by Toshiba. This double data rate Toggle Mode NAND is faster than conventional asynchronous NAND, but still offers lower power consumption than competing synchronous DDR NAND designs. Selecting the best components, like Toshiba’s fast flash is one of the secret to the M5 Pro’s performance.

Powerful Controller and Optimized Firmware

Plextor use the 88SS9187 controller from the Marvell Technology Group - to draw out the full potential of the Toggle-mode NAND. This chip, combined with Plextor's in-house developed, highly -tuned tuned firmware, produces an SSD that is not only fast but that also maintains its high efficiency for a long time to give you what we termed "True Speed." It also includes a data protection function, which we call “True Protect”.

Spec calculation methods vary widely depending on the manufacturer. In some cases, the manufacturer only uses the values for the maximum instantaneous speed. To find out an SSD’s true efficiency, however, average values must be taken after all aspects of the drive have been tested.

Don't choose an SSD based on specs alone!

Specs are a handy reference when choosing an SSD. However every manufacturer has its own way of measuring and declaring them. All SSDs these days are high-speed. It's not surprising that consumers find it hard to choose between them. However there is danger in blindly trusting in spec values.

Main specs of the M5 Pro Extreme series

Model number		PX-128M5P	PX-256M5P	PX-512M5P
Capacity		128GB	256GB	512GB
Cache capacity		256MB DDR3	512MB DDR3	768MB DDR3
Drive size		2.5 inches
Interface		Serial ATA 6Gbps
Controller chip		88SS9187 (Marvell Technology Group)
Sequential speed	Read	540MB/sec	540MB/sec	540MB/sec
	Write	330MB/sec	460MB/sec	470MB/sec
Random 4K speed	Read	92,000 IOPS	100,000 IOPS	100,000 IOPS
	Write	82,000 IOPS	86,000 IOPS	88,000 IOPS
Warranty		5 years

The Graph on the below shows the results we obtained when we used HD Tune Pro 5.50, storage utility software from EFD Software, to test the speed of the drive when used to save all kinds of Data. The M5 Pro's results are on the furthest left. The other two results belong to comparatively newer rival products.

There are 3 models in the Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme lineup.

The most popular is the 256GB model, which can also be used as a main drive.

The M5 Pro isn’t just fast, its speed remains stable at an average of 300MB per second (MB/s). It fills all the capacity with data written at a high speed. Product, A in the middle, is a typical example of a maximum speed-oriented model. Its read speed started out at almost 400MB/s but then dropped rapidly to 260MB/s, where it stayed. Product B, on the right, was unstable. While its maximum speed was over 370MB/s, its lowest speed was under 190MB/s. This averages out to an unstable 250MB/s.

In all areas, products A and B may appear fast. When you actually use them, however, you may discover that they are not as fast as the specs may lead you to believe. The M5 Pro is your best choice if you want true high-speed storage that delivers satisfaction.

For more information about the product(s), please visit the Plextor website (click here). For the M5 Pro Xtreme product info (click here).

*Disclosure: An important note, we are just sharing this information to the public, provided by our source (Image Media Phils). Plextor Info / Logos / Photos / Images have respective copyrights.

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