Plextor SSDs are used?

[bradley]

This has not come up in any of the reviews and Plextor directly supports them.

I first read about Plextor rebranding PLDS SSD and optical drives about the time of the 2010 Las Vegas CES. Plextor is a parent company to Lite-On. So somewhere between May 2006 and January 2010 Plextor ceased production on their own optical drives. There's scant information out there on the subject.

Plextor and Lite-On @ CES
http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/01/13/plextor-and-lite-on-ces/

Here's a thread with someone wanting to flash their Lite-On SSD with Plextor firmware:
http://w.plextoramericas.com/index.php/forum/27-ssd/6193-plextor-firmware-on-liteon-drive

Crucial also uses PLDS drives, including their latest Performance Pro. The main difference between the Crucial Performance Pro and Plextor M3S/M3P is firmware.

 

[jwilliams4200]

Crucial also uses PLDS drives, including their latest Performance Pro. The main difference between the Crucial Performance Pro and Plextor M3S/M3P is firmware.

Corsair, not Crucial.

 

[bradley]

Corsair, not Crucial.

Thanks for the correction of my brain freeze. Yes, Corsair. Crucial is Micron.

 

[KingFatty]

I first read about Plextor rebranding PLDS SSD and optical drives about the time of the 2010 Las Vegas CES. Plextor is a parent company to Lite-On. So somewhere between May 2006 and January 2010 Plextor ceased production on their own optical drives. There's scant information out there on the subject.

Plextor and Lite-On @ CES
http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/01/13/plextor-and-lite-on-ces/

Here's a thread with someone wanting to flash their Lite-On SSD with Plextor firmware:
http://w.plextoramericas.com/index.php/forum/27-ssd/6193-plextor-firmware-on-liteon-drive

Crucial also uses PLDS drives, including their latest Performance Pro. The main difference between the Crucial Performance Pro and Plextor M3S/M3P is firmware.

Hmm I still don't see it, the link you provided does not support your claims about Plextor. At most, it suggests that at CES, Plextor was presenting themselves in the same suite (e.g., building) as Lite-on:

Plextor will be located in the Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions (PLDS) suite in the Mirage.

The PLDS is mentioned as being a distributor for other brands such as Plextor and HP. So, I still think that article is consistent with Plextor being a separate brand that is not rebranding other drives?

As for the link to someone asking to flash his Lite-On SSD to Plextor firmware, it seemed to me like the impression was Plextor was making SSDs for other companies who put their label on them or something?

 

[bradley]

Obviously Plextor doesn't want anyone knowing the M3S and M3P are hardware identical, much less, their drives are manufactured by PLDS. Judging by the reactions here, they have done a pretty good job hiding the fact.

I only posted the first two messages from Google. Thirty extra seconds of searching produced this.

http://www.epinions.com/prices/plds-liteon-plds-512gb-sata-iii-mls-pro-hard-drive?sb=1
http://www.walmart.com/ip/PLDS-Plext...etail/13437439
http://www.amazon.com/PLDS-PX-256M3P.../dp/B0088L467G
http://www.jr.com/plds/pe/P1S_PX256M3P/



Plextor plunges into SSD pool
Hitching ride on PLDS
By Chris Mellor
Posted in Storage, 19th January 2010 11:36 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/19/plextor_ssd/

Japanese-owned Plextor, a significant player in the optical drive business, is entering the solid state disk (SSD) market, riding on the back of Philips Lite-On Digital Solutions (PLDS).

Plextor is privately owned by Shimano Kenshi of Japan. PLDS is a joint-venture and is licensed to sell Plextor kit in North America. PLDS will be doing the SSD product development and production while Plextor has the branding responsibility; exactly what Plextor does is a little unclear, but we suspect not a lot in product technology terms.

Two Plextor-brand SSDs were shown at CES in Las Vegas. They are 2.5-inch, SATA II interface products using multi-level cell (MLC) flash chips from Samsung and Marvell controllers. They come in 64GB and 128GB capacity points. With two parent organisations - one of which is a JV with a Taiwan operation as well as a North American sales operation - there is no single website point of contact, so you'll need to glean information from all over.

 

[bradley]

By the way, the addresser of my Plextor M3S rebate check was actually Philips/Lite-On.

I'm not knocking Plextor; I love my SSD and think their firmware is impressive.

 

[Hellhammer]

bradley,

Thanks for the info! I've heard about that before as well but haven't found anything concrete (well, I can't say I looked very hard...).

 

[bryanW1995]

Good find on Plextor.

It looks to me like they have gained some really solid traction in the ssd market this year. Good performance + good reliability = win. I'm interested to see how their m5 does over the long haul, they might get on my list next time I'm in the market.

 

[lehtv]

Despite that nice warranty, Plextor is hard to recommend because of the price...

Crucial M4 vs Plextor M3
M4 128GB = $100, M3 128GB = $130
M4 256GB = $210, M3 256GB = $250
M4 512GB = $400, M3 512GB = $600

I can see the extra warranty being remotely worth it on the 256GB drive, still staying under $1/GB and only a 20% increase in cost.

 

[MontyAC]

Despite that nice warranty, Plextor is hard to recommend because of the price...

Crucial M4 vs Plextor M3
M4 128GB = $100, M3 128GB = $130
M4 256GB = $210, M3 256GB = $250
M4 512GB = $400, M3 512GB = $600

I can see the extra warranty being remotely worth it on the 256GB drive, still staying under $1/GB and only a 20% increase in cost.

Why buy at the current prices? Just wait for the next sale. I got my Plextor M3 128GB for $90.

 

[lehtv]

Because sale prices and dates aren't very predictable, and Crucial M4 tends to have lower sale prices than Plextor M3. Samsung 830 has also been at $90, better deal than Plextor for $90 if you ask me. It's really just as reliable, even if the warranty is shorter, and it's faster.

But I didn't know M3 had ever been that low.

 

[jwilliams4200]

The Plextor / PLDS / Lite-On SSD products situation is murky. Having just spent some time reading everything I could find on the web, I want to summarize what I found. Unfortunately it is not definitive. In order to get a definitive answer, I guess a journalist should contact Plextor, PLDS, and Lite-On to get statements. But failing that, here are some facts.

Plextor LLC is a private company based in Fremont, California which operates as a subsidiary of the private Japanese company Shinano Kenshi Co. Ltd. According to Bloomberg Businessweek :

Plextor LLC develops and manufactures digital media equipment and optical solutions for professionals, financial institutions, government agencies, consumers, and enterprises. It offers CD-Rs/RWs, DVD+Rs/RWs, offset printing machines, background music systems, and optical disc drives; compelling products, such as digital video converters, multimedia products, and disc duplicators; and digital audio-based information systems, a set of hardware and software solutions to record, store, transfer, and read digital audio books. The company also provides solid-state drives for system boot-up, application launch, and file transfer applications. It serves customers in the United States and Canada. The company was founded in 1990 and is based in Fremont, California. Plextor LLC operates as a subsidiary of Shinano Kenshi Co. Ltd.

In the fine print at the bottom of the Plextor Americas website :

Plextor is used by Lite-On IT Corporation under agreement with Shinano Kenshi Co.,Ltd.

Shinano Kenshi Co. Ltd. is a privately owned company based in Japan. It is the parent company of Plextor and appears to be one of those widely-diversified conglomerates that are common in Japan. According to Bloomberg Businessweek :

Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd., along with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells precision electric motors and actuators in North America. The company also provides motor parts, electronic devices and printing equipments, optical disk drives and digital video solutions, and computer peripherals and industrial machineries. Its products include BLDC motors, AC induction motors, hybrid stepping motors, blower fan motors, geared motors, polygon mirror scanner motors, polygon mirror scanner motors, and micro pumps. In addition, the company produces silk yarn. Its products are used in air conditioner, air purifier, gas/oil room heater, refrigerator, bio-type waste disposer, paper shredder, automated vending machine and pump, PPC, printer, projector, fax, medical equipment, instrumentation equipment, automobile, motorcycle, industrial equipment, hot water boiler and supply equipment, burning, blowing, ice maker, and cooling applications. The company was founded as Shinano Spun Silk Spinning Co.,Ltd. in 1918 and changed its name to Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd. in 1973. Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd. is based in Ueda-shi, Japan with a sales office in Tokyo. The company has subsidiaries in Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, and the United States.

Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corp. (PLDS) is a privately owned corporation based in Taiwan. According to Bloomberg Businessweek :

Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corp. designs, develops, markets, and sells optical disc drive products for personal computer, game console, and automotive infotainment product applications. It offers a line of optical storage solutions ranging from CD-ROMs, CD-rewritable products, combos, slim combos, and DVD-ROMs to DVD rewritable and Blu-ray disc writers. The company has a strategic alliance with ConvenientPower HK Limited. Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corp. was formerly known as Philips & Benq Digital Storage Corporation and changed its name to Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corp. in December 2006. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. It has subsidiary operations in Fremont, California; and Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corp. operates as a subsidiary of Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV.

There is an interesting PLDS website that prominently displays the Plextor brand name (as well as LiteOn and HP), but the 'About PLDS' page only mentions Philips and Lite-On.

Unlike Plextor and PLDS, Lite-On is a public company. So perhaps more information can be obtained for Lite-On as opposed to Plextor or PLDS. However, Lite-On is large and complicated (there is Lite-On Technology Corp, Lite-On Semiconductor Corp, Lite-On IT Corp, etc). It is based in Taiwan, but there are subsidiaries in Japan, London, and the US. I did not spend any time digging through all of the public statements related to the various Lite-On corporations.

There is an interesting Lite-On SSD website. Lite-On apparently offers the following 2.5" MLC SSD models under the category "OEM Products" :

M2S 9.5mm
LAT-128M2S : 420, 210, 15K, 9K
LAT-256M2S : 480, 330, 15K, 9K

M3S 9.5mm
LAT-64M3S : 450, 80, 57K, 23K
LAT-128M3S : 510, 190, 75K, 51K
LAT-256M3S : 500, 350, 75K, 73K
LAT-512M3S : 500, 430, 56K, 27K

M3S 7mm
LCT-64M3S : 510, 160, 57K, 43K
LCT-128M3S : 520, 530(sic), 74K, 70K
LCT-256M3S : 520, 430, 74K, 70K
LCT-512M3S : 520, 430, 56K, 33K

and under "Consumer Products" :

S100 9.5mm
64GB : 500, 150, 50K, 40K
128GB : 510, 300, 70K, 65K
256GB : 510, 400, 70K, 65K

E200 9.5mm
80GB : 500, 120, 66K, 32K
160GB : 510, 240, 73K, 62K

[specs listed are : Seq. Read (MB/s), Seq. Write (MB/s), Ran. Read (4K IOPS), Ran. Write (4K IOPS)]

Plextor's 2.5" MLC SSD models are:

M1S
PX-64M1S : 110, 65, 4.2K, 1.2K
PX-128M1S : 130, 70, 4.3K, 1.8K

M2S
PX-64M2S : 370, 110, 18K, 12K
PX-128M2S : 420, 210, 18K, 12K
PX-256M2S : 480, 330, 18K, 12K

M2P 9.5mm
PX-128M2P : 500, 320, 70K, 65K
PX-256M2P : 500, 440, 70K, 65K

M3 9.5mm
PX-64M3 : 520, 175, 55K, 40K
PX-128M3 : 500, 210, 70K, 50K
PX-256M3 : 520, 360, 70K, 65K

M3P 7mm
PX-128M3P : 535, 350, 75K, 69K
PX-256M3P : 540, 420, 75K, 68K
PX-512M3P : 535, 450, 56K, 34K

M5S 9.5mm
PX-64M5S : 520, 90, 61K, 25K
PX-128M5S : 520, 200, 71K, 51K
PX-256M5S : 520, 390, 73K, 70K

M5P 7mm
PX-128M5P : 540, 340, 91K, 82K
PX-256M5P : 540, 450, 94K, 86K
PX-512M5P : 540, 450, 94K, 86K

Comparing the Lite-On SSDs to the Plextor SSDs, there are no exact matches. But some of them seem very similar. For example:

LAT-128M2S vs. PX-128M2S
LAT-128M3S vs. PX-128M3
LCT-256M3S vs. PX-256M3P

However, I do not see any equivalent Lite-On model to the Plextor M5S. Maybe Lite-On just hasn't updated their webpage yet, or maybe there will be no Lite-On equivalent to the Plextor M5S. But the performance of the Plextor M3S and M5S is so similar that it is difficult to distinguish them from just the specs.

My opinion (guesswork) is that Plextor probably has some sort of deal with PLDS where PLDS designs and builds SSDs for Plextor, according to Plextor's specification, but obviously within the constraints of PLDS's capabilities, which results in SSDs very similar to what PLDS makes for Lite-On. However, it seems Plextor either alters the firmware themselves, or pays someone at PLDS to make custom changes to the firmware for Plextor. Certainly Plextor seems to have more firmware updates available for download than does Lite-On. And of course Plextor seems to have separate marketing from PLDS, and Plextor offers 5-year warranties on several models while Lite-On only has 3-year warranties.