14 DAY TRIAL // Plextor has been focusing, for the most part, on the development and manufacture of digital media equipment. This year's Consumer Electronics Show, however, saw the company showcasing its very first line of solid state drives (SSDs) alongside its newest eSATA external DVD writer, the PX-880UE.
The PX-880UE is a 24X DVD/CD writer that can interface with a PC both through the eSATA interface and USB 2.0 dual connections. In addition to the faster speed, better performance and increased versatility of the drive, the device also makes use of Plextor's PlexERASE and PlexUTILITIES technologies, and even LightScribe for disc labeling.
More noteworthy than the optical storage solutions, however, are the solid state memory devices that the company has showcased. The SSDs from Plextor employ non-volatile NAND Flash memory and utilize the Marvell controller chipsets. These features allow the drives to deliver faster system boot-up speeds, as well as a more speedy application launch and file transfer. The drives even boast a lower power consumption.
“Plextor has a lot of new items in the works, and we’re excited to announce our first line of SSDs to meet consumers’ demand for low power consumption, enhanced performance and reliability,” Christine Hsing, marketing manager at PLDS, said. “The new eSATA drive is a great move forward for us as well – it further expands consumers’ options by providing both a SATA and a USB 2.0 connection.”
The SSDs are equipped with the company's own, unique Wear Leveling algorithm, which enables the drives to prevent the performance degradation and lengthen the product life to as much as 1.5 million hours MTBF. In fact, Plextor's drives were the only ones shown to maintain their level of performance, regardless of whether they were clean or dirty, according to the PCMark and SYSMark benchmark tests.
The 64GB and 128GB solid state drives are expected to become available during the ongoing first quarter of 2010. More information may be found on the official website.