Why You Can Trust CNET Plextor M5 Pro review: Plextor M5 Pro
Plextor introduced the first solid-state drive that uses Marvell's 88SS9187 Monet controller, the M5 Pro today, that proved to be one of the fastest on the market.
I've been reviewing solid-state drives (SSDs) from Plextor in order, starting with the
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Plextor M5 Pro
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The reason for this? Apart from doing it just because I could, the M5 Pro is intended to be Plextor's new top-tier drive and also the first from the company that supports the new 7mm design. I've got my priorities straight; in my testing, the drive indeed deserved this special attention.
The M5 Pro looks a lot better than Plextor's previous drives, which already look very good, and also offers fast performance. It also comes with a drive bay converter and more software than you need. Unfortunately, since I actually tested it prior to its release date, the information on its pricing wasn't available. That said, if the drive costs around $1.50 per gigabyte or less, it will make an excellent investment.
If not, you should also check out the
Design and features
| Drive type | 7mm thick, 2.5-inch standard Internal drive |
| Connector options | SATA 3 (6Gbps), SATA 2, SATA |
| Available capacities | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB |
| Product dimensions | 7mm thick, 2.5-inch standard |
| Capacity of test unit | 256GB |
| OSes supported | Windows, Mac, Linux |
The Plextor M5 Pro is the fourth SSD I've reviewed that comes in the new 7mm thickness. This means that, similar to the Intel 520, the RunCore Pro V, or the
Inside the compact package, you'll also find an NTi SSD Utility Suite that includes drive clone software and backup software. This helps you quickly update your existing computer from a hard drive (or an old SSD) to the Plextor M5 Pro. Unlike the Monster Digital, the M5 Pro doesn't include a USB - SATA adapter, so you'll have to get one by yourself in caseyou want to upgrade your laptop. For desktops, you can install the drive as a secondary drive for the cloning process.
In my trials, the Plextor M5 Pro worked with all of the SATA standards, including SATA 3 (6Gbps), SATA 2 (3Gbps), and SATA (1.5Gbps). You will want to use it a computer that supports SATA 3, however, if you want to get the most out of its performance.
While the look and function of the Plextor M5 Pro are very similar to its peer, on the inside, the drive is quite different. It's the first drive I've seen that uses Marvell's 88SS9187 Monet controller, which supposedly provides enterprise-grade double data protection. It's hard to test this out, however, since it can only proved by using the drive over time but the drive is slated to offer more than 2.4 million hours of meantime between failure, about double that of others.
To prove its confidence in the new drive's longevity and reliability, Plextor gives it the top five-year warranty. When it comes to storage devices, the warranty time is the most important and Plextor deliver in the case of the M5 Pro.
Performance
I am not sure about the Plextor M5 Pro's lifespan, which'd take more time than I can afford to test, but I was in impressed by the its performance. With just 11 seconds boot time and 6-second shutdown time, the drive will definitely bring a new life to a computer that's been running a hard drive as its main drive.
All applications also took much shorter time in my trials to load and the test computer resumed from sleep mode instantly. The drive also did very well in in sequential write and read performance test, where I measured how fast it can transfer a large amount of data.
When used as a secondary drive, where the Plextor could show its top performance since it only performed the writing, drive scored some 250MBps. When used as a host drive of a computer and did both writing and reading at the same time, it registered 156MBps. Both of these numbers were among the top three of all SSDs I've seen.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
 | Shutdown | | Boot Time |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| As Secondary Drive | | As OS Drive |
Conclusion
With such great performance, the Plextor M5 Pro will likely make a great SSD for anybody. The drive is slated to be available later this month; let's hope its pricing will make it easy for consumers to enjoy it.