CeBit 2014: OCZ, Plextor launch new SSDs
It's been a fairly quiet CeBit trade show for traditional PC components, but Plextor has announced a few new solid-state drives in a variety of form factors. OCZ is also reasserting itself after recently being acquired by Toshiba, though it's only showcasing one truly new product.
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Despite comprising three different form factors, all of the new Plextor drives will be part of the M6 family. The 2.5-inch M6S version (pictured above) actually uses Toshiba's 19nm NAND flash memory in capacities up to 512GB, offering 520MB/s sequential read speeds and 440MB/s sequential write speeds. The mSATA version, the M6M, manages similar speeds (including 94,000 random read IOPS and 80,000 random write IOPS) and capacities, while being sized for far slimmer devices.
The crown jewel of the new series is the M6e, a PCI Express-based drive that Plextor claims is optimized for pro gamers. It uses a server-grade controller from Marvell and has firmware tweaked to maximize performance, producing 770Mb/s sequential read speeds and 625Mb/s sequential write speeds, along with 105,000 random read IOPS and 100,000 random write IOPS. Available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, the M6e is rated with a MTBF of 2.4 million hours and comes with a five-year warranty.
While OCZ put out a press release trumpeting its presence at CeBit, most of the SSD products it's displaying are updates or recent launches, rather than new models. However, the Z-Drive 4500 was just released earlier this month. Designed for servers with PCI Express connectivity options, the Z-Drive 4500 offers sequential read speeds of 2,900MB/s and sequential write speeds of 2,200MB/s and is available in three capacities: 800GB ($2,355), 1.6TB ($3,806), and 3.2TB ($6,533). The largest capacity version can handle up to 2.5 petabytes of writes over its lifespan.
Not surprisingly, and like the 2.5-inch Plextor M6, the Z-Drive 4500 makes use of the new parent company's 19nm MLC NAND. It also features the ability to throttle performance when it senses that temperatures are getting too high, which complements the redesigned casing with integrated heatsink.