The Toshiba XG5 (1TB) SSD Review
by Billy Tallis on August 3, 2017 9:01 AM ESTConclusion
The Toshiba XG5 isn't the fastest NVMe SSD; its use of TLC NAND and its reliance on SLC caching do hurt it in some scenarios, and Samsung's TLC-based 960 EVO is usually faster, sometimes by a wide margin. But for typical client and consumer workloads the XG5 offers very good mainstream performance that is competitive with many MLC-based NVMe SSDs. The drive that the XG5 most often ties with on performance is the Plextor M8Pe, which uses Toshiba 15nm planar MLC and a Marvell controller. Our M8Pe results are somewhat handicapped by our 512GB M8Pe sample being at a capacity disadvantage, but normally the use of TLC would be a bigger handicap.
Samsung's NVMe performance records are hard to beat, and Toshiba wasn't really trying for that with the XG5, though its performance is certainly good enough for the intended uses. Where Toshiba has raised the bar is power efficiency. The XG5 is one of the most power efficient PCIe SSDs on the market, in spite of using TLC NAND. Its efficiency is sometimes beat by some of Samsung's NVMe drives on tests that hit the XG5's most acute performance weaknesses, but on more real-world tests the XG5 is the clear winner.
As a successor to Toshiba's MLC-based OCZ RD400, the XG5 doesn't bring any significant performance improvement and is usually a bit slower. When Toshiba gets around to launching a true retail replacement for the RD400 we may see some modest performance increases due to firmware tweaks, possibly sacrificing some power efficiency in the process. For now as an OEM product, the XG5's advantages of lower cost, lower power consumption and a single-sided 1TB model are clearly worth the performance sacrifice.
We've had occasion in the past to complain about high-end laptops advertising NVMe SSDs but shipping with relatively disappointing TLC-based drives. The XG5 will not provide the same disappointment. Its performance is worthy of an expensive machine and its power efficiency makes it undoubtedly the best choice for OEMs to adopt.
In desktops or for laptops that don't really care about battery life, the XG5 is not an obvious winner and the decision comes down to pricing that isn't publicly available for OEM products. When Toshiba comes out with a retail counterpart to the XG5 it will not offer a significant performance upgrade over their OCZ RD400. Toshiba will have to position the retail counterpart as offering good NMVe performance at a much more accessible price that was possible with planar NAND. They should have no trouble offering a better price to performance ratio than drives using planar MLC and will have a much better value than drives like the Intel 600p and WD Black, but the real question is how much Toshiba can undercut the Samsung 960 EVO.
As with the Intel 545s, we see a new generation of 3D NAND flash bringing significant improvements, but not to the top-line performance numbers. In both cases we see substantially reduced power consumption and increased density. Since typical consumer workloads are not noticeably affected by further improvements in sustained performance at high queue depths, it looks like flash memory technology is moving in the right direction. These advances may be trickier to market to consumers than a 4GB/s throughput specification would be, but that doesn't make them any less valuable.
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Hurr Durr - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
Honey, Samsung IS South Korea.Kristian Vättö - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Look at it from the other perspective. If it wasn't for Samsung, companies like Apple, Dell, HP etc. would barely have any product to sell. The US hasn't been strong in memory for decades and even today Micron is still just a drop in the ocean from overall wafer production point of view.Samus - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Indeed.Santoval - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
I think you are swimming in conspiracy theory waters. Since there is no legal way to target Samsung specifically, the only way for what you are suggesting is by slapping heavy tariffs on South Korean imports in the US. But that is a dangerous slippery slope, since it could be the start of a global tit-for-tat tariff war. Now, I do not say that Trump is not crazy or stupid enough to not go there, but I still do not think he will do it, because hopefully cooler heads will prevail. If he does the US will be completely isolated, and since it is a major part of the global economy, the 2008 - 2010 crisis will seem like peanuts.Reflex - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Don't bother asking him that, it'll just turn into conspiracy theory bullshit.Ratman6161 - Monday, August 7, 2017 - link
This is the second AT story I've read today where the comments devolved into a flame war within the first page. If everyone would just stop feeding the trolls I think things would be a lot better. As it is, the comments area is rapidly reaching uselessness.cfenton - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
They would have to undercut the 500GB EVO by $75-$100 and the 1TB by $100-$150, at least, to make this thing compelling. Though, to be honest, I haven't noticed a huge difference going from a BX100 to a 960 EVO in everyday performance. It's certainly better for demanding tasks, but that's not important for a lot of people.Sivar - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
The technical detail and comprehensiveness of this SSD review is impressive.It must have taken man weeks to put this all together.
Billy Tallis - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
It did take quite a while to put together the new test suite, and re-test older drives for comparison data. The Intel 750 is a particular nuisance since I only have equipment to measure one power rail at a time and the 750 uses both the 12V and 3.3V lines.Now that I have the new test suite (mostly) complete and automated as much as possible, I hope to be able to churn out reviews more quickly. There will be another SSD review going up next week while I'm at Flash Memory Summit.
Ratman6161 - Monday, August 7, 2017 - link
AT is my go to place for SSD reviews. I like the consistent testing procedures over time which really helps to do apples to apples comparisons. One thing I' would like to see though is more comparisons of different sized drives in the same brand/model family.For example I was recently shopping for an NVMe drive and Samsung has been my go to brand for a few years now for high-mid range with crucial for my more run of the mill drives. So of course I was considering the 960 EVO. The trouble was I didn't need or want to pay the price for a 1 TB model (have a 750GB MX300 for bigish storage)...the 256GB was more in my price range. But you only usually have results for the 1 TB model. Digging around on other sites I was able to determine that the 256GB model took a huge performance hit compared to the larger sizes. In the past, Samsung drives used to seem like they took less of a hit when down sizing capacity, which was another plus for the brand. I ended up with a 512 GB Evo as a good balance between price and performance...but there were a lot of guesswork and assumptions involved with that choice.
I can't be the only one out there that thinks this way?