Plextor PX-256M3

Plextor PX-256M3 (256GB)

The solid-state drive (SSD) market may be dominated by major names: Intel, Samsung, OCZ, Crucial, and so on, but this doesn't mean the dark horse doesn't have a shot. Case in point: Plextor. Though the company is best known for its inexpensive, reliable, and ubiquitous optical drives, it makes SSDs as well, and its newest in the recently released M3 series are capable of racing right alongside the big boys. The 256GB 256M3 ($369.99 list) stands up quite nicely to the best performers we've seen in the field—with a price most are hard pressed to beat. A prime source of that value is the controller, the Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2. This is the same one used in the previous series, the M2S (we reviewed the 128GB version, the PX-128M2S, last year), which promises sequential read speeds of up to 525MBps and sequential write speeds of up to 445MBps; the data interface is 6Gbps SATA III, so you'll be able to get as close to those ideal speeds as possible. The storage chips are 24nm Toshiba Toggle MLC NAND flash, and they're paired with a nice-sized 512MB cache to bolster performance still more.