The Plextor M6 Pro and SanDisk Extreme Pro occupy the same space in this Labs, as they share the same controller, Marvell’s 88SS9187. They differ in the types of NAND used, though, along with the features on offer, with both firms offering their own tweaks and proprietary additions. The Extreme Pro uses SanDisk’s own 19nm 2-bit NAND, with Plextor instead opting for A19nm Toshiba MLC NAND as used in the OCZ Arc 100.
Both firms have performance-enhancing tricks in the firmware too. With Plextor, there’s the TrueSpeed feature, designed to restore drive performance when it’s idle, which sounds suspiciously like TRIM, which isn’t supported on every operating system. There’s also TrueProtect, a fancy term that encompasses AES 256-bit encryption with some further error checking. SanDisk’s nCache Pro caching also makes a comeback, with a similar system to Samsung’s TurboWrite, where a small portion of the capacity is used as SLC cache.
Plextor also provides a generous five-year warranty, but SanDisk takes the warranty crown by offering ten years, in response to Samsung’s offering. Another notable difference between the two drive ranges is the price. The 256GB Plextor M6 Pro is considerably more expensive than other 256GB drives, with a cost of 52p per gigabyte, almost at the level of Intel’s SSD 730. There’s a saving to be had by opting for the larger capacity, where the price drops to 49p per gigabyte, but this price is still well above that of many competing drives. SanDisk’s Extreme Pro is slightly cheaper, but at 47p per gigabyte, it’s still costly.
In terms of performance, both drive ranges sit mid-table when it comes to synthetic tests, with reasonable speeds of around 525MB/sec for sequential read, with the 512GB M6 Pro hitting a 495.8MB/sec write speed. Random read and write speeds, along with speeds are mostly towards the middle of the chart, with the Extreme Pro hitting 39.2 MB/sec random read and the M6 Pro claiming the top spot in the 32-queuedepth random read tests.
In the real-world tests, the Extreme Pro had the worst boot time of any drive on test, although the M6 Pro came top in the Microsoft Word trace test, with the rest of the results sitting around the middle. The test results aren’t remarkable, and as both these ranges of SSDs are relatively pricey, without offering a huge speed gain over the other brands, they’re up against fierce competition.
Conclusion
With so many SSDs offering similar synthetic and real-world performance, an SSD needs to either be an amazing performer or offer brilliant value for money to make an impact. The Plextor M6 Pro and SanDisk Extreme Pro are both good SSD ranges, but there’s no single aspect to eitherof them that makes them stand out, meaning there are better options available in terms of both performance and value for money.
VERDICT
Both decent ranges of SSDs, but fierce competition means they struggle to stand out in terms of performance or value.
OVERALL SCORE
PLEXTOR M6 PRO 256 GB – 76
PLEXTOR M6 PRO 512GB – 78
SANDISK EXTREME PRO 480GB – 79
