The Toshiba Q300 SSD Review: Toshiba Becomes a Retail Brand
by Billy Tallis on February 26, 2016 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Given the strong hardware similarities to the OCZ Trion 100, I expected the Toshiba Q300 to turn in very similar benchmark scores. Instead, several noticeable differences cropped up: the Q300's latency is more variable, its active power consumption is a bit lower, and it completed The Destroyer a bit quicker. At least some of this (especially improved power efficiency) is probably due to the silicon lottery.
None of that is enough to have much effect on how it ranks. The Q300 is a low-end drive and is among the slowest SSDs on the market. It's hardly alone in that; I've lost count of how many different brands are selling Phison TLC drives. In that sense the Q300 doesn't stand out from that crowd, and while that doesn't make it a bad drive it means that Toshiba is entering a very competitive market with nothing substaintial besides their name to differentiate themselves.
With no clear price or performance advantage over even the OCZ Trion 100, the Q300 currently brings nothing new to the table. Its pricing has generally been at or above the Trion 100, so barring an unusual sale situation, there's little reason not to pick its OCZ doppelgänger. But considering the whole family of the Q300, Trion 100, and more related drives sold by other brands, the combination of Toshiba flash and Phison controller architecture has been successful at offering consumers a good budget option with no major weaknesses. Under light use, they're only slightly slower than MLC drives, rather than crippled as our most intense tests can make them look. Otherwise the SanDisk Ultra II is a better all-around performer, but at the moment only its 480GB capacity is in the lead for price.
| Value SSD Price Comparison | ||||
| Drive | 960GB | 480GB | 240GB | 120GB |
| Toshiba Q300 | $264.99 | $139.00 | $69.99 | $49.99 |
| OCZ Trion 100 | $199.99 | $129.99 | $64.98 | $54.99 |
| OCZ Trion 150 | $269.99 | $139.99 | $69.99 | $50.61 |
| ADATA SP550 | $219.99 | $119.99 | $61.99 | $39.99 |
| Crucial BX200 | $294.97 | $129.99 | $64.99 | |
| SanDisk Ultra II | $238.50 | $120.99 | $74.99 | $54.99 |
Ultimately Toshiba is in a unqiue position here that can work in their favor, even if starting things off with an entry-level drive doesn't allow them to take advantage of it. They are one of the major NAND flash manufacturers, and at the same time they have a special relationship with their controller vendor. Because of that they're not completely vertically integrated the way Samsung is, but they ought to be able to reap many of the same benefits in the long run.
From a product standpoint the Trion 100 did a good job of keeping pace with the price drops over the past several months, but neither it nor the new Q300 are sufficiently differentiated from the rest of the entry-level market. Now that Toshiba is directly participating in the retail SSD market with their own brand, I believe they should try for a unique blockbuster product to firmly establish their place. A big success like Crucial's MX100 or BX100 or Samsung's 850 Pro and EVO would make their retail venture worthwhile and could make either the OCZ or Toshiba brand a major name instead of another face in the crowd.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
30 Comments
View All Comments
kmmatney - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
I upgraded my laptop from a Samsung 830 to a SanDisk Ultra II 980GB (TLC + SLC cache) and the Ultra II is noticeably faster in everyday use. Anand reviewed it a while back and it was one of the lower powered drives as well - in fact more efficient than MX100 according to the review.Oyster - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
I have a radical suggestion, guys. Can you please start review articles with the price comparison? This (price comparison) just seems out of place since the rest of the product attributes are already being compared to the competition on the first page. I often find myself jumping between the first and the last pages just to compare items. Plus there have been times when I have just skipped to the last page just for the price comparison... case in point, some of the ridiculously-priced mechanical keyboards - I know they're not even worth my time at $150.Also, when are you implementing single-page views??? :)
nathanddrews - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
Hopefully never. If you want single-page, just click "Print This Article":http://www.anandtech.com/print/10084/the-toshiba-q...
aggressor - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
Is this really considered their first retail drive? What about the Toshiba THNSNH model they released in 2013? I have one of them and it was retail boxed.jjj - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
You should include PCIe drives in the results as prices are becoming more reasonable and the high end SATA models less appealing.ddriver - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
Toshiba needs to reevaluate their pricing - 140$ for the 480GB model is far from a good deal considering that for 20$ extra you can get an evo which is significantly faster, has significantly longer warranty period and has 20GB extra capacity.mczak - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
I wonder how the different Q300 differ and compare to each other?There's two series available: Q300 RG4 (models starting with HDTS7xxx) and Q300 RG5 (HDTS8xxx). The RG5 seems to be newer, I assume different flash (the tested one can be identified as a RG4 in the picture). But for all I know they could have completely different characteristics despite Toshiba wanting to believe you it's all the same...
mczak - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
I suppose actually flash is going to be the difference - 15nm vs 19nm, so it would be like a Trion 150 (though the Trion 150 had 3 differences vs. the Trion 100, 15nm flash instead of 19nm, newer firmware (with larger SLC buffer), plus a thermal pad for the controller chip, the latter was likely the reason it had faster sustained write performance, and those other differences might not carry over to the Q300 - so there might not be much difference in the end after all).harrynsally - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
?????? it appears that Toshiba's strategy may have been to use the Trion 100's earlier release to make sure everything was working properly before releasing the Q300 to catch the eye of a wider audience??????Just checked Newegg Trion 100 owner reviews.
44% rated the 120GB drive 1 star and 41% rated the 240GB drive 1 star.
Appears that OCZ SSDs still lack in quality, reliability and performance,
wagon153 - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
You're taking Newegg reviews serious? Lol. The Kingston V300 has 4 stars and is as bad, if not worse then, old OCZ drives.