Anandtech Plextor M9Pe review

UsandThem

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May 4, 2000
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https://www.anandtech.com/show/12747/the-plextor-m9pe-nvme-ssd-review

That leaves Plextor with pretty much the slowest flagship SSD of any brand. The M9Pe is consistently behind the Intel 760p, WD Black and Samsung 970 EVO. The Plextor M9Pe can usually match the performance of the MLC-base M8Pe, but on heavier workloads it falls behind.

Power efficiency is also a challenge for the M9Pe. It seldom demonstrates much improvement over its predecessors that used planar NAND.

Ouch. Probably not the review Lite-On was hoping for.

It's pretty much a repeat of their prior generation NVMe drives. They are priced higher than their competitors, without really any justification based on performance.
 

XavierMace

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Apr 20, 2013
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It's pretty much a repeat of their prior generation NVMe drives. They are priced higher than their competitors, without really any justification based on performance.

I think you might want to refresh your memory on the reviews of their previous drives as that's not the general consensus. Anandtech's own review states:

The Plextor M8Pe cannot keep up with Samsung's 960 Pro, but otherwise it is a solid contender in the PCIe SSD space. Its overall performance is near the Samsung 960 EVO and the Toshiba OCZ RD400.

The one big surprise from the Plextor M8Pe was its steady-state random write performance. With the heatsink it performed in the same league as the Intel SSD 750 and Samsung's 960 Pro and EVO. Even without the heatsink, it performed better than most consumer SSDs. Furthermore, when given the benefit of some extra spare area to work with, the M8Pe with a heatsink turned in the fastest steady-state random write speed we've measured on a consumer SSD.

At the time of that review (and all 3 times I bought one), the M8PeG sat between the 960 Evo and 960 Pro in pricing and was cheaper than the RD400.
 

UsandThem

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I think you might want to refresh your memory on the reviews of their previous drives as that's not the general consensus. Anandtech's own review states:

Don't need to. Their previous gen drive was often more expensive, and availability was spotty at best. Plus, unless users bought one of the (more expensive) variants with a heatsink, it would throttle much quicker than other drives. Now with their current gen drive, it is priced higher and is the slowest "flagship" drive per the review.

Could it still be worthwhile to pick up? Yes, but they will need to price it lower than the 970 EVO and WD Black. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense to buy this over one of those drives.

At the time of that review (and all 3 times I bought one), the M8PeG sat between the 960 Evo and 960 Pro in pricing and was cheaper than the RD400.

I saw the drive on sale a few times where it was the same price (and a couple times cheaper) than better reviewed drives, but for the most part it was always priced higher.
 

Shmee

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I see that the 1TB m9pe with heat spreader is on Newegg for $200. I am thinking of picking it up for my laptop, or would it be much better to go with the Adata Sx8200 for $14 more? I don't want to spend a ton on a 1TB class NVMe drive, so these seem like good ones to consider atm.
 

fleshconsumed

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Feb 21, 2002
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I see that the 1TB m9pe with heat spreader is on Newegg for $200. I am thinking of picking it up for my laptop, or would it be much better to go with the Adata Sx8200 for $14 more? I don't want to spend a ton on a 1TB class NVMe drive, so these seem like good ones to consider atm.
Adata looks like a better drive, but I'd wait for a sale if you can. A week ago AData was $180
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsa...data_xpg_sx8200_960gb_nvme_17849_coupon_code/

There is a good chance it's going to go on sale again.
 

Shmee

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Thanks, I will probably go with that, or wait for the price to go a bit lower.
 

fleshconsumed

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I suggest you set a deal alert on slickdeals and r/buildapcsales for adata sx8200 and hp ex920. There is a good chance that in the next month one or the other is going to be on sale again.
 

UsandThem

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Thanks, I will probably go with that, or wait for the price to go a bit lower.

I suggest you set a deal alert on slickdeals and r/buildapcsales for adata sx8200 and hp ex920. There is a good chance that in the next month one or the other is going to be on sale again.

The HP drive was just on sale for $197 yesterday, but I checked to see if the promo code was still good at Newegg, and it expired.

But to answer your first question about the Plextor in a laptop, it is one of the the hottest and has high power usage. I wouldn't put one of those in a laptop.