[section_title title=”Conclusion”]

Conclusion

There is no denying that the Plextor M6e BK is one fast SSD, especially when paired up with the PlexTurbo 2.0 software. The PCIe adapter also allows for users to make the best of M.2 SSD’s which run off of your PCI lanes anyways, without the need for an M.2 slot. Is it worth your hard earned money though? Well, let’s have a little recap.

Performance

Looking back at our benchmarks and the Plextor M6e BK is the fastest SSD we have had on test here at Play3r and it should be. Utilizing PCIe lanes from the CPU over the normal SATA ports will allow for much faster speeds. Most standard M.2 slots are rated at 10GB/s whereas SATA 3 are 6GB/s just to give you a bit of an idea. With read speeds around 700MB/s and write speeds of close to 600MB/s this M6e is going to offer users amazing loading time in all their favourite games and programs and as we can see by the Windows 7 load time benchmark, it can also improve operating system loading time which is great.

The real question remains though, will the end-user actually see a difference in speed between the M6e and a standard 2.5″ SSD. Well, the answer will depend on exactly what you use it for while you may not notice your programs opening up a couple of seconds faster, if you are one for transferring big files around, you will definitely notice a great performance boost there. Looking back at our 4.75GB transfer results and it was just over a second faster than the previous best. In theory, this means for every 5GB or so you transfer, you will save one second compared to even the fastest of 2.5″ SSD’s, a gain that may mean the world of difference to some!

Design

As far as design goes, I must say the M6e BK is one I quite favoured a bit. The black PCB over the original green is a great improvement and the heat/protective shield is a nice addition. While I am personally not a big fan of red, the added design of the red heatsink does offer a nice bit of flare to the drive and will just add that little something extra to any build it is used in. The included PCI bracket is sure to come in handy but is also easily removable for those who want to do something a bit different from the norm. All in all, the M6e BK’s design is quite nice, it’s not overly bulky and really does just look like quality.

Value

This is the part of the review I always dread, but in more so this time around. Coming in at almost £210, this is one of they more expensive SSD’s money can buy on a price per GB ratio. Depending on which drive you choose, you could buy 2 other 2.52 250GB SSD’s and still have money left over to take your better half out for dinner and a couple of drinks.

The way I look at it is simple, if you want to charge me almost 3x the price of something similar, you need to offer at least 2x the performance AT LEAST! The M6e, unfortunately, does not offer this type of performance boost over more standard SSD’s which is really quite disappointing. While there is a definite and noticeable performance boost over more standard SSD’s the price is simply just not justified.

Final Thoughts

The Plextor M6e offers a bit of a boost in read and write speeds as it does use the PCIe interface rather than the standard SATA one. However, the performance gain is not overly impressive, especially once the price in figured into the equation. If you are in desperate need of the extra storage space and are out of SATA ports, then the M6e will definitely fit the bill and offer some nice speeds while doing. However, if you are not out of SATA ports, or you have an M.2 slot, it may be worthwhile at looking into a bigger drive that uses one of those interfaces and is a bit cheaper.

Silver Award – The Plextor M6e BK is going to walk away with our silver award today for a couple of reasons. While I loved the drive, and it does offer great speeds, I didn’t feel they were truly groundbreaking and the price is just too high in my opinion. As SSD prices come down, hopefully, Plextor will make their PCIe SSD’s a bit more viable option with some price reductions.

I would like to thank Plextor for sending their M6e BK Edition SSD in for review!