Msata Plextor M6M, yay or nay?

Thinking about picking up a PX-128M6M 128gB msata solid state tomorrow for $85 from micro center to stuff in my T420. I'm currently running my oem WD 7200rpm 320gB drive, and a 1tB 5400 in my ultrabay. Never had a solid state drive before.

Prices are down enough I can justify the cost. I'd go with a regular 2.5" ssd if it wasn't for the fact I want to eventually get a second tB, and have 2 tB of storage plus a ssd on the go

Really just wondering if it'll for SURE work in a T420 (i'm 99% sure it will), and since I believe my msata slot is sata II, if it'll perform great.
I'm already running 12gB ddr3 1600mhz, and I upgraded to a I7-2670qm. I 'mostly' just daily drive my notebook, surfing the internet, occasionally playing non taxing games. I feel my hard drive is holding me back big time. I spend a lot of time daily looking at the hdd LED and waiting

 

I had one of those in a X220 and loved it.

Obviously, YMMV.

 

Yay. :thumbsup:

 

Nay.

See:
AnandTech | Plextor M6S & M6M (256GB) Review

See:
https://www.mikescomputershop.com/item/2414239

(240GB SSD for $35 more)



Can't recommend 128GB SSD's to anyone for anyone for a long time now and Plextor with their highly variable performance is still not worth buying even at the $85 price point.


If you read the article I linked for the M6M you can see that it is recommended that at least 10%-15% be left unallocated to help with the wild swings in performance (I still recommend 30% though...), but that means that at the most you have a drive that has 107GB of real capacity and as low as ~83GB.

This includes the O/S, required free space (25GB minimum) and any data and programs that you may require specifically on the SSD.


While the $85 price seems tempting, the required setup work and the hard capacity barrier you'll hit in a week of use or less is not something that can be 'fixed' - except to buy a bigger drive.


I vote that you save a little longer and buy a drive that will match the needs of a 2014/2015 O/S requirements a little better than a toy/tablet like 128GB capacity will right now.


Good luck.

 

Thanks for the advice. This is 'kind of a spir of the moment decision'. I was considering saving and eventually ordering a 256, or even 512gB msata. I still may end up getting this, wanting to have it "NOW" is over riding my "I should wait for a 256gB" thought.

Currently I only have 117gB partitioned for my win 7 install and my 'daily apps', only have 46.2gB used. So I figure a 128gB would be sufficient enough to get the benefits of a ssd (OS, and daily driver apps on it)

 

Hmmm... it does seem capacity wise that you would be okay. Even with over provisioning to 30% which would leave you with ~37GB free space if your install stays static for the next few months/years.

But the idea of paying 70% of the 256GB price and getting 'down to' 25% of the performance just doesn't sit right with me.


The absolute cost isn't what would put me off of this idea. What makes me stop is the work required to move the O/S, programs and data to the SSD (even if a cloning program was used - but not recommended by me). And after all that to get HDD levels of performance (on certain workloads).

Sure, overall the SSD will be great vs. the HDD you have now. But for $35 (or less, do a price match/beat) more - it could be phenomenal. And for the exact same effort required to get your system on the SSD joyride.

 

I'm considering a 250, just not sure if I'm going to spend the money or not. ugh!

Reinstalling my OS is no biggy to me, I actually have a habbit of re-installing windows every 2-6 months lol.. I always like to keep my system fresh, even if I do go a bit overkill.

Since I'm leaving both my HD's in here, I don't have to worry about copying data over or anything. I currently have rufus making a GPT UEFI win 7 sp1 usb install drive, just went and downloaded all the latest lenovo/intel drivers, couple hd benchmarks, waiting for it to warm up a hair more before I drive 30 minutes to micro center.

 

Well I'm definitely stoked to have my first SSD. I didn't need a bench mark to see the results, reboots/start from shut down are soo fast. I haven't put a stop watch to it, but I'm counting 8-9 seconds from hitting the power button to the OS being fully loaded..
Nothing hangs (untill I try to access my ty 1tB drive) lol. It's amazing, I love it! And it's not like my last OS was full of viruses, I had just formatted and re installed windows 3-4 weeks ago lol.

Still had to do a quick benchmark before bed. Top left is my 128gB M6M Plextor, top right is my 3 year old factory WD 7,200 rpm 320gb drive, bottom is my 10 month old sack of toshiba 1tB lol.

 

Welcome to the club!


Just a little note: the white box at the bottom of CDM allows you to put in some notes... Makes the screenies self explanatory.

 

Good to know, thanks.

I think I've rebooted my Lenovo more last night than I have ever rebooted ANY device in its entire lifetime. haha

edit: After disabling hibernate (12gB of space), reducing my starting pagefile from 12gB down to 1gB (with a 6gB max now), disabling system restore, my windows 7 ultimate install with all updates, drivers, and my daily apps installed, I'm only using 16.7gB of space!

Really happy, I've never tried to trim windows down as I've always had large OS drives and had no 'reason' to shave 20-30gB. I've always wondered why windows took 45gB ish on a frest install..

Now at least I have lots of space on it to install other apps and some low end games. I'll always keep at least 30% space free.

Question though, I've read many guides, lots of misinformation (mostly from old guides), do I need over provisioning? I started by leaving aprox 25% unformatted, but read that over provisioning does nothing on modern ssd's, so I just added that extra space back onto my drive.
I'll always maintain my own drive and make sure I don't fill it up (don't even expect to hit 50% capacity

 

Free space is not the same as unallocated capacity when it comes to a HDD or an SSD.

Search this forum under my name - you should get lots of hits (hint: use google search, nbr search is borked).

(Sorry, going to see a client right now).

 

Damn, should have checked the forums more often

I mounted the same 128Gb M6M on my Alienware 14 and highly recommend it. The applications that I need don't fill up the drive that much and hence, 128Gb was more than enough for me. Here, some benchmark numbers on a SATA-III mSATA port:

 

Yeah, but an intelligent controller should make use of the free space. Free or unallocated space doesn't matter, a smart controller should imho without any problems perform gc, trim-commands, ecc etc, as long as it has access to some free space.

But that's of course the ideal ssd....