Over the past couple of years, PCIe SSDs took over the performance market. While high-performance SATA SSDs still exist, PCIe NVMe drives are the ones leading the charge. Despite the popularity of NVMe SSDs, there remains a sizable SATA market. This is especially true for the masses which have still yet to enjoy the pleasure of solid state drives. To address this market, Plextor is releasing yet another budget drive, the S3.
The S3 follows up along the same lines as the S2 which came before, coming in two variants. We have the S3C in the 2.5″ form factor and the S3G in the M.2 form factor. Despite the updated form factor, the S3G is reportedly still using the SATA protocol. Plextor is making the S3C in 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB capacities and the S3G in 128 GB and 256 GB. Plextor is pricing the drives just about where you would expect at 62€, 106€, and 213€, respectively for the EU.
Compared the S2, the controller uses the new Silicon Motion Industries 2254 instead of the SMI 2258. As expected, the drive used planar TLC NAND, from SK Hynix as well. Plextor has also updated the 16nm NAND to new 14nm NAND. The S3 read performance is 550 MB/s and writes at 500 MB/s, 510 MB/s, and 520 MB/s. 4K read performance is rated at up to 72K IOPS, 90K IOPS, and 92K IOPS, and 4K random write performance at 57K IOPS, 71K IOPS, and 72K IOPS.
