Plextor M3 Series Solid State Drive Goes 'Pro'

Remember when Plextor ruled the optical drive market with premium ODDs that typically performed better than the competition? That was long before the price of CD/DVD burners fell to around the cost of a case of water, and these days Plextor appears fully focused on solid state drives (SSDs). Announced at CES 2012 is Plextor's new M3 Pro Series, an improved version of the original M3.

The M3 Pro Series uses high-grade 24nm Toggle Flash memory, includes updated firmware, and boasts a new 7mm height form factor for use in ultra-slim notebooks. Sequential read and write speeds have been bumped up to 540MB/s and 450MB/s, respectively, and random read/write speeds have gone up about 7 percent to 75,000/69,000 IOPS.


Part of the speed upgrade is due to the new firmware, which also features in Plextor's proprietary Bad Block Management, Global Wear Leveling, and Instant Restore technologies. True Speed technology is part of the package too, and like the original M3, it's supposed to prevent drop-offs in performance over time.

The M3 Pro Series will be available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities in "early 2012." No word yet on price.