 | |
| Industry | Computer hardware |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1985; 40 years ago (1985) Chiyoda, Tokyo,Japan |
| Headquarters | Taipei,Taiwan |
| Products | SSDs,optical disc drives,networking tools |
| Parent | Shinano Kenshi |
Plextor (styledPLEXTOR) (Chinese:浦科特;Japanese:プレクスター) is a Taiwanese (formerly Japanese) consumer electronicsbrand, best known forsolid-state drives andoptical disc drives.
The brand namePlextor was used for all products manufactured by the Electronic Equipment Division and Printing Equipment Division of the Japanese companyPlextor Inc., which was a 100%-owned subsidiary company ofShinano Kenshi Corp., also a Japanese company. The brand was formerly known as TEXEL, under which name it introduced its firstCD-ROM optical disc drive in 1989. The brand has been used forflash memory products, Blu-ray players and burners, DVD-ROM burners, CD-ROM burners, DVD and CD media,networkhard disks,portable hard disks,digital video recorders, andfloppy disk drives.
The brandPlextor was in 2010 licensed toPhilips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corporation, a subsidiary company ofLite-On Technology Corporation.[citation needed] Therefore, all thePlextor products since then, especiallySSDs, are of a Taiwanese, not a Japanese brand. However, the Japanese companyPlextor Inc., who originated this brand name, continues, and sells new products under other brands such as PLEXLOGGER and PLEXTALK.
On September 3, 2019, it was announced Lite-On would sell its SSD business to Toshiba Memory, which is now known asKioxia.[1] On January 10, 2024, Kioxia stopped using the brand name because of failure to adapt to the market as a result of neglecting to adapt PCIe Gen 4 and Gen 5 controllers.[2] Plextor is now a brand fromRitek.[3]
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Plextor introduced its first solid state drives, the M1 SSD series available in 64 GB and 128 GB capacities. The M2 Series followed, which they claimed to be the first SATA 3 SSD available at the time. In October 2011, Plextor announced the M2P Series with increased performance.
In December 2011 and January 2012, Plextor released the M3 and M3 Pro Series in 64 to 512 GB capacities. Similar to its predecessor, the M3 is a SATA 6 Gbit/s interface with a Marvell chip set. New, is the 24 nm Toggle NAND Flash (instead of 32 nm Toggle NAND Flash used for the M1, M2, and M2P).
Plextoroptical drives are known for having an extended functionality and command set forpower users, that has not been adapted by other optical drive vendors.
This functionality includesextendedsurface error scanning,[4]GigaRec (higher density recording on CDs, similar to theDDCD"Purple Book" standard),VariRec (laser power calibration), and"Silent Mode", which has the ability to adjust the ejection and loading speed of the disc tray and to limit the rotation speed of the disc.[5]
To make use of those features, Plextor provided a paid suite of tools called "PlexTools". In 2005, the parent company of Plextor, Shinano Kenshi, tried to thwart the creation of free and open-source alternatives to PlexTools by legally threatening third-party developers.[6]
