The Toshiba RC100 SSD Review: Tiny Drive In A Big Market
by Billy Tallis on June 14, 2018 9:00 AM ESTPower Management Features
Real-world client storage workloads leave SSDs idle most of the time, so the active power measurements presented earlier in this review only account for a small part of what determines a drive's suitability for battery-powered use. Especially under light use, the power efficiency of a SSD is determined mostly be how well it can save power when idle.
For many NVMe SSDs, the closely related matter of thermal management can also be important. M.2 SSDs can concentrate a lot of power in a very small space. They may also be used in locations with high ambient temperatures and poor cooling, such as tucked under a GPU on a desktop motherboard, or in a poorly-ventilated notebook.
Toshiba RC100 NVMe Power and Thermal Management Features |
|||
Controller | Toshiba unknown | ||
Firmware | ADRA0101 | ||
NVMe Version |
Feature | Status | |
1.0 | Number of operational (active) power states | 3 | |
1.1 | Number of non-operational (idle) power states | 2 | |
Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) | Supported | ||
1.2 | Warning Temperature | 82 °C | |
Critical Temperature | 85 °C | ||
1.3 | Host Controlled Thermal Management | Supported | |
Non-Operational Power State Permissive Mode | Not Supported |
The Toshiba RC100 supports a fairly complete set of power and thermal management features. The RC100 is well-equipped to be kept within the often tight power and thermal limits of the small form factor machines it was originally designed for as a BGA SSD. The three active power states cover a reasonably wide range of power limits. Based on the transition latency ratings, there's no reason for a system to bother with the shallower PS3 idle state if the deeper PS4 state can be used.
Toshiba RC100 NVMe Power States |
|||||
Controller | Toshiba unknown | ||||
Firmware | ADRA0101 | ||||
Power State |
Maximum Power |
Active/Idle | Entry Latency |
Exit Latency |
|
PS 0 | 3.3 W | Active | - | - | |
PS 1 | 2.7 W | Active | - | - | |
PS 2 | 2.3 W | Active | - | - | |
PS 3 | 50 mW | Idle | 10 ms | 45 ms | |
PS 4 | 5 mW | Idle | 10 ms | 50 ms |
Note that the above tables reflect only the information provided by the drive to the OS. The power and latency numbers are often very conservative estimates, but they are what the OS uses to determine which idle states to use and how long to wait before dropping to a deeper idle state.
Idle Power Measurement
SATA SSDs are tested with SATA link power management disabled to measure their active idle power draw, and with it enabled for the deeper idle power consumption score and the idle wake-up latency test. Our testbed, like any ordinary desktop system, cannot trigger the deepest DevSleep idle state.
Idle power management for NVMe SSDs is far more complicated than for SATA SSDs. NVMe SSDs can support several different idle power states, and through the Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) feature the operating system can set a drive's policy for when to drop down to a lower power state. There is typically a tradeoff in that lower-power states take longer to enter and wake up from, so the choice about what power states to use may differ for desktop and notebooks.
We report two idle power measurements. Active idle is representative of a typical desktop, where none of the advanced PCIe link or NVMe power saving features are enabled and the drive is immediately ready to process new commands. The idle power consumption metric is measured with PCIe Active State Power Management L1.2 state enabled and NVMe APST enabled if supported.
The active idle power consumption of the RC100 is about 1W, which is fairly typical for NVMe SSDs but a bit surprising for this drive in particular given its low-power focus. As with many drives, the deepest NVMe power state doesn't work out of the box with our desktop testbed, leaving it with substantially worse idle power draw than typical SATA drives and some NVMe drives.
The idle wake-up latency of the RC100 is in the 3-4ms range which is plenty fast and far better than the drive's pessimistic 45-50ms specification.
62 Comments
View All Comments
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
I care. I like seeing what's happening in the rest of the market outside of the highest end hardware since I am more likely to allocate less money to a computer than is required to get top performing parts. Why waste the money on something as unimportant as a computer component when there's a retirement account and a comfortable post-work life to enjoy as soon as humanly possible? Priorities kid, you've got to figure out what matters most in life. Protip: It's not computer parts.chrnochime - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
You!= everyone. So don't ask such silly question as "did anyone care" because of course there are ppl out there that care.smilingcrow - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
970 Pro is mainly for show-offs. If you actually need high end performance there are faster and more cost effective solutions.mr_tawan - Friday, June 15, 2018 - link
It's probably down the pipe. And if it's not, then you can buy them a review unit.bananaforscale - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
Like it or not, low end sells much more than high. Not that a low-end NVMe drive is slow by typical standards.u.of.ipod - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
Billy nice write-up, good to see something a little different. I've read some reviews and am wondering why NVMe is really taking off for lower end drives? From what I can tell even if you compare top of the line NVMe drives against your average SATA SSD, the real world differences are pretty slim for the majority of use cases. Why try to shove NVMe into the low-end market? Is SATA going away? Are many new M.2 slots not compatible with both SATA and NVMe?I've really only used SATA M.2 drives thus far and have been happy with the results.
MajGenRelativity - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
I'm not sure why, but it could be about standardizing on NVMe. If everything supports NVMe, there don't need to be as many SATA ports, which saves companies some moneyMidwayman - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
Halo effect and marketing? Is there really any reason a NVMe drive needs to be more expensive? So long as most computers are supporting it now you might as well standardize new drives on the newer interface.bug77 - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
On top of that, NVMe comes with higher power draw. Because PCIe vs SATA.PeachNCream - Thursday, June 14, 2018 - link
That can be fixed with technological development. For now, SATA is more power-efficient, but as NVMe becomes more popular, market forces will create a demand for higher efficiencies and the problem will be soon enough.