Plextor Intros M3 SSD Series with 5 Year Warranty and 6Gbps Marvell Controller

Plextor has just announced the introduction of the M3 series of 6Gbps solid state drives that are based on a server-grade Marvell controller and are thoroughly tested in order to provide users with 5 year warranty.

The M3 series SSDs use the regular 2.5-inch form factor and will be released in three capacities providing 128GB, 256GB and 512GB of storage space.

At the heart of the solid state drives stands Marvell’s 88SS9174 SATA 6Gbps controller which is paired together with toggle NAND Flash memory built by Toshiba using the 24nm fabrication process.

This memory was designed by Toshiba to require only 1.8V in order to operate, which should decrease the power consumption of the SSDs using it, while also being able to support transmission rates of 133 Mbps.

According to Plextor, this configuration enables the M3 series SSDs to reach sequential read and write transfers speeds of 525MB/s and 445MB/s, while their random read/write performance is estimated at 70,000/65,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second).

In addition to the impressive performance promised by Plextor for its drives, the company also made sure that its SSDs are able to deliver long-term stability.

In order to reach this goal, the company puts the M3 series solid state drives through a series of thorough factory tests.

Such tests include a 22.5-hour high temperature burn-in test and intense usage simulations, which, according to Plextor, have enabled its drives to reach an AFR (annual failure rate) of 0.50%.

The 5 year warranty consists of a 3 year ‘Fast Warranty Service' (collect & return) across the EU, Norway and Switzerland (1 year elsewhere) and 2 years carry-in service thereafter.

The Plextor M3 solid state drive series will become available later this month at a yet undisclosed price point.