The Plextor M3 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on April 5, 2012 3:05 AM ESTPower Consumption
Plextor shipped us the 256GB model, which is perfect for power comparisons.
The idle power consumption is roughly half of what the Crucial m4 and Intel SSD 320 consume, and less than half when looking at SF-2281 based SSDs like the Vertex 3 and Intel SSD 520. This time it's not just firmware related, though—it's NAND. All the drives in the above graph except the M4 and Samsung SSD 830 use synchronous NAND (ONFi 2.x). As Anand explained in our OCZ Agility 3 review, synchronous NAND is tied to a clock signal. That signal is continuous and hence it constantly uses power, leading to a higher idle power consumption. Toggle-Mode NAND has no active clock signal and hence its DQS signal only uses power during read and write operarions.
For read and write loads, the Plextor M3 appears similar to Intel as they consume more power during sequential write than random write. That's good news because most I/O operations are at least moderately random, so focusing on low random I/O power consumption should result in lower overall power consumption. It's all up to one's workload, of course.
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ImSpartacus - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
And you write pretty well considering your experience.This Guy - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Agreed. You don't have a qurky style yet that screams out you wrote a piece, but this is a tech site so that's a good thing.You do a bloody good job, 18 or not. I haven't read many pieces by people as young that are at your level. You come off as a pro.
andylawcc - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
what "ImSpartacus" and "This Guy" said, good job Kristian!Sabresiberian - Saturday, April 7, 2012 - link
I agree, Kristian is doing a very nice job.I say all the time maturity and age aren't necessarily related, and Kristian is one more example of what I'm talking about.
The saddest thing about our society (in America and the rest of the "First World") is that the level of maturity has gone down, even though the actually average age in years has gone up. I quit a World of Warcraft guild a while back because of the lack of maturity - in the 30-something and older crowd, not the teenagers.
;)
Arbie - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
And in what we can assume is a second language... I'm very impressed. Good job.Hourglasss - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I'm 17, How do I get your job?JonnyDough - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
As if that matters. Let me know when you start thinking in terms of decades instead of months. :)A5 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Man I'm old.ImSpartacus - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
O_oFuckin dream job for a minor, amirite?
earthrace57 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Wow...I am 14 and I would kill for that job :PBut in all seriousness, I would never have known that you were 18, you should go tell whoever taught you to write that they did a good job.