Plextor joins titans of MLC flash at the 90,000 plus club
Champagne and speedy SSDs
Plextor has joined OCZ and SMART in the 90,000+ club, the providers of elite MLC SSDs that exceed 90,000 random read IOPs per second.
Fast single-level cell (SLC) flash is used to drive SSDs at speeds beyond 100,000 IOPS doing random reads of 4K data blocks. Multi-level cell (MLC) flash, with 2 bits per cell, is slower, shorter-lived and cheaper and SSDs using it offer 30,000 - 70,000 IOPS. With clever flash controller technology, the MLC stuff can be driven faster and reach more than 90,000 IOPS as well has having the number of endurance-shortening writes reduced.
SMART's Optimus Ultra Plus does 100,000 random read IOPS, 60,000 writes, and has sequential read/write bandwidth of 500MB/sec. It can also do 50 full drive writes a day for five years, belying MLC's short life
OCZ's Vertex 4 does 95,000 random read IOPS, 85,000 write IOPS and has sequential read/write bandwidth of 560/510 MB/sec through OCZ tweaking the firmware of its Indilinx controller. This SSD has a five-year warranty.
Now Plextor has joined the club. Its M5 Pro will do 94,000 random read IOPS, 86,000 writes, and has a sequential read/write bandwidth of 540 and 450MB/sec. It uses a third-generation Marvell 88SS9187 controller to reach these performance levels and says the drive won't suffer from performance drop-off as it ages. Plextor says its read technology, such as a "data hold-out" algorithm, enables the controller to get good read data over the long term, correcting for errors on the fly.
There is a five-year warranty, standard for this class of SSD, and Plextor claims the lowest SSD failure rates in the industry. IT pros should see the drive being used in servers and workstations.
Both Micron and LSI are making a push into MLC SSDs. How do their products rate?
Micron's C400 does up to 40,000 random read IOPS, and has read;/write bandwidth numbers of 415 and 260MB/sec; it's comprehensively outclassed in the performance stakes. We understand this uses a Marvell controller and it dearly needs an update.
Micron is bigging up its flash credentials, but – apart from its SLC PCIe-based P320h – it has no big performer to write home about. Micron has a ways to go to get the claimed advantage of flash foundry-controller technology integration.
LSI has MLC WarpDrive PCIe product, but does not have an equivalent SSD product.
Intel has MLC SSD product. Its 710 does 38,500 random read IOPS, 2,700 writes, and has 270 and 210 MB?sec read/write sequential bandwidth. It's not in the Plextor M5 Pro class at all.
For high-end MLC SSD performance product, a 90,000+ random read IOPS number and 500MB/sec+ bandwidth number – allied to five-year endurance – are becoming table stakes.
We wonder if Plextor has ambitions in the PCIe flash card area. If it did then a PCIe version of the M5 Pro could fly.
The PM5 Pro will be available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities in mid-August 2012, when pricing information will be released. ®
COMMENTS
More proof of NOT ready for Prime Time SSDs
Yeah, you knew this was coming and I suspect these "discoveries" will be ongoing for a few more years before SSDs actually become plug and play with reliability. If you've bought a Sandforce based SSD you should read the stroy at the link below as your SSD may take a huge performance hit soon.
Re: We don't know how any of the trick-of-the-week SSDs actually perform
That's true. I'd always wait 6 months before purchasing any SSD, first units always get a shocking amount of problems which need 2-3 firmware revisions.
The added bonus is they're much cheaper then too :-)
We don't know how any of the trick-of-the-week SSDs actually perform
Lately Plextor has been rushing out new SSD models weekly to try and keep pace with the rushed-to-market crap SSDs from other companies. Quite frankly we know almost nothing about the reliability and compatibility of these SSDs in spite of all the hype and hoopla.
As we see from purchaser reviews all over the Net, there are still plenty of installation and operational issues with most brand name drives no matter what the source. As Anandtech has stated: "this is immature tech" and "people should wait 6-12 months before buying", from it's release to see if the product is actually reliable and compatible as often numerous firmware updates are required, lost capacity and data are common and RMAs are the order of the day for many.
The OCZ vertex 4 SSD has had three firmware updates in two weeks... so unless you're into being an unpaid beta tester, you might want to wait six months or so before jumping on this half-baked crap rushed to market for huge profits from naive consumers.
BTW I have bought and used Plextor products in the past without issue but SSD tech is still immature and there is no reason to expect Plextor to be immune from SSD issues any more than any other SSD maker.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
What you need to know about cloud backup
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM Implementer’s Checklist
