The Toshiba Q300 SSD Review: Toshiba Becomes a Retail Brand

Random Read Performance

The random read test requests 4kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, which is filled before the test starts. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.

The Q300 performs only slightly worse than the Trion 100, but the difference is enough to push it below even the Crucial BX200 and into last place by a hair. The top-performing SATA drive by comparison, Samsung's 850 Pro, is twice as fast. The SanDisk Ultra II performs more like a MLC drive.

The Q300's power consumption isn't poor, but like most of the other TLC drives it's much less efficient than the typical MLC drive - let alone the SM2246EN-based BX100 and M6V.

Toshiba Q300 480GBADATA XPG SX930 480GBCorsair Neutron XT 480GBCrucial BX100 500GBCrucial BX200 480GBCrucial MX100 512GBCrucial MX200 512GBOCZ ARC 100 240GBOCZ Trion 100 240GBOCZ Trion 100 480GBOCZ Trion 100 960GBOCZ Vector 180 480GBPlextor M6V 256GBSamsung 850 EVO M.2 500GBSamsung 850 Pro 512GBoption value="http://images.anandtech.com/doci/10084/extreme_pro_480_rr.png">SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GBSanDisk Ultra II 240GB

The Q300's random read performance scales with queue depth in a normal-looking manner, but the curve just isn't steep enough to compete.

Random Write Performance

The random write test writes 4kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test is limited to a 16GB portion of the drive, and the drive is empty save for the 16GB test file. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.

As with the random read test, the Q300, Trion 100, and BX200 are clustered at the bottom of the chart, demonstrating the they are not very good at mitigating the slower program times of TLC as compared to MLC flash. The SanDisk Ultra II seems to have much more effective SLC caching.

The Q300 was clearly a bit more efficient than the Trion 100 for random writes, but it doesn't put it anywhere near the efficiency of the drives that deliver solid performance.

Toshiba Q300 480GBADATA XPG SX930 480GBCorsair Neutron XT 480GBCrucial BX100 500GBCrucial BX200 480GBCrucial MX100 512GBCrucial MX200 512GBOCZ ARC 100 240GBOCZ Trion 100 240GBOCZ Trion 100 480GBOCZ Trion 100 960GBOCZ Vector 180 480GBPlextor M6V 256GBSamsung 850 EVO M.2 500GBSamsung 850 Pro 512GBSanDisk Extreme Pro 480GBSanDisk Ultra II 240GB

The Q300's random write performance scales very slightly as queue depth increases from one to four, and it stops there. The power consumption is lower than the Trion 100 at QD2 and higher. We've also seen this lack of scaling with the Crucial BX200, but the SanDisk Ultra II managed to use planar TLC flash without being similarly afflicted.