Plextor enters the SSD market with the fast M2S series, available in 3 different capacities: 64GB, 128GB and 256GB.

The SSD is boasted by its Marvell 88SS9174 control chip and offers the latest SATA 6Gb/s interface for fast transfer times, with sequential read speed up to 480MB/s.

64 GB: Up to 370 / 110 MBps (read / write)
128 GB: Up to 420 / 210 MBps (read / write)
256 GB: Up to 480 / 330 MBps (read / write)

The drive achieves long-term stability by incorporating Plextor's "Instant Restore Technology" to overcome the performance loss associated with long-term use. The M2S also supports the latest Windows 7 TRIM command, providing more efficient data wipe-out methods.

Performance, stability, and lifespan of the SSD are also improved by the 128MB DDR3 cache, serving as a temporary storage buffer. The DDR3 high-speed transfer interface will reduce seek/read/write time of the flash memory so that data is transferred more quickly.

Also increasing the product lifespan is the Dynamic Wear Leveling system that uses an efficient data allocation method, so that data is written into various memory blocks equally, which reduces the number of memory wipe-outs and thus preventing from performance degrading.

Plextor Europe offers 3 years of 'Fast Warranty Service' in the EU, Norway and Switzerland for the M2S series (and 1 year carry-in in other countries).

The Plextor M2S SSD will be available in Europe next month. However, it is currently available in the U.S . with the following MSRPs: 64GB ($179.99), 128GB ($329.99) and 256GB ($699.99). The drives come bundled with Acronis True Image software for disk cloning and backup.