The Toshiba/Kioxia BG4 1TB SSD Review: A Look At Your Next Laptop's SSD
by Billy Tallis on October 18, 2019 11:30 AM ESTRandom Read Performance
Our first test of random read performance uses very short bursts of operations issued one at a time with no queuing. The drives are given enough idle time between bursts to yield an overall duty cycle of 20%, so thermal throttling is impossible. Each burst consists of a total of 32MB of 4kB random reads, from a 16GB span of the disk. The total data read is 1GB.
The Host Memory Buffer feature allows the Toshiba BG4 to offer burst random read performance that is competitive with high-end NVMe SSDs. Without HMB, it's about 40% slower, which brings it down to the level of the Crucial MX500 SATA SSD.
Our sustained random read performance is similar to the random read test from our 2015 test suite: queue depths from 1 to 32 are tested, and the average performance and power efficiency across QD1, QD2 and QD4 are reported as the primary scores. Each queue depth is tested for one minute or 32GB of data transferred, whichever is shorter. After each queue depth is tested, the drive is given up to one minute to cool off so that the higher queue depths are unlikely to be affected by accumulated heat build-up. The individual read operations are again 4kB, and cover a 64GB span of the drive.
On the longer random read test, HMB has minimal impact because this test is working with more data than the HMB cache can help with. The BG4 is a step up from the BG3-based RC100, but otherwise it's slower than other low-end NVMe drives, including the HP EX900 (which does still benefit appreciably from HMB).
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| Power Efficiency in MB/s/W | Average Power in W | ||||||||
The BG4 matches the RC100's low power consumption and thus earns a better efficiency score, but it's still a relatively poor result due to the low performance. The HP EX900 requires more power overall than the Toshiba drives, but with HMB it performs well enough to beat the high-end drives on efficiency.
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Since the HMB used by the BG4 isn't quite big enough to properly accelerate performance on this test, the BG4's performance does not scale well with increasing queue depth. It's still an improvement over the RC100, but all the NVMe SSDs with a full-sized DRAM cache are clearly much faster at high queue depths.
Except at the highest queue depths, the random read performance of the BG4 stays within SATA territory, with good but not record-breaking efficiency.
Random Write Performance
Our test of random write burst performance is structured similarly to the random read burst test, but each burst is only 4MB and the total test length is 128MB. The 4kB random write operations are distributed over a 16GB span of the drive, and the operations are issued one at a time with no queuing.
As with the burst random read test, HMB helps tremendously on the burst random write. Unfortunately, the BG4 is slightly slower than the 480GB RC100 with or without HMB, but at least with HMB it still offers a big performance boost over SATA.
As with the sustained random read test, our sustained 4kB random write test runs for up to one minute or 32GB per queue depth, covering a 64GB span of the drive and giving the drive up to 1 minute of idle time between queue depths to allow for write caches to be flushed and for the drive to cool down.
The longer random write test also covers a wider span of the drive, which defeats the performance benefits HMB would otherwise offer and leaves the BG4 just as slow as the RC100. The HP EX900 manages to provide twice the performance despite also being DRAMless, but even that is still slower than the mainstream SATA SSD.
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| Power Efficiency in MB/s/W | Average Power in W | ||||||||
The BG4 has the lowest power consumption on the random write test, slightly better than even the RC100. But the performance is poor enough that the efficiency scores are still among the worse for this batch of drives.
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Since the bottleneck for the BG4 on this test is the mapping data access rather than the writing of user data, performance is basically flat across all tested queue depths save for slightly higher performance at QD1.
Plotted against all the drives that we have put through this test, the BG4 is stuck down in the low-performance/low-power corner where it isn't setting any records for better or worse.
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MrCommunistGen - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
I recently picked up a Dell Optiplex 3070 Micro for a family member, and it shipped with a 128GB BG4. Performance of the 128GB model is going to obviously be much lower than the 1TB model tested here.From my anecdotal experience, performance is acceptable, but could easily be better. I replaced it with a 1TB XG6 (~$120 from eBay) - mostly for capacity, but the performance uplift was (understandably) noticeable.
abufrejoval - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
Nice review for a solid product: Thanks!While I guess it reduces the worries about a soldered down SSD somewhat, I just hope they'll continue to sell even ultrabooks with M.2 or XFMExpress: Just feels safer and helps reducing iSurcharges on capacity.
Targon - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
Agreed. If the motherboard fails, being able to remove the SSD for data recovery SHOULD be seen as essential by most people.Wheaties88 - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
I don’t see why most manufacturers wouldn’t see it as useful as well. Surely it would allow for less replacement motherboards needed if they could simply change the drive size. But what do I know.kingpotnoodle - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
Nobody considers it essential because relying on removing your SSD for data recovery if the motherboard fails is a deeply flawed strategy and not applicable to the vast majority of people who wouldn't even consider opening their laptop nevermind knowing how to remove the drive and access it outside the laptop.The same thing that saves you if your SSD fails will also save you if anything else makes the machine unbootable - a proper backup.
Targon - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
You haven't had people come to you because their laptop has died but they need their data? Consumers may not be ready or able to get data from a dead laptop that has a drive you can remove, but the places they turn to SHOULD be able to.Tell me, can you recover data from a dead Macbook(dead motherboard) these days with the storage on the motherboard yourself? If the motherboard in your own personal laptop failed, wouldn't YOU want to be able to pull the drive if you needed data from it?
abufrejoval - Friday, October 25, 2019 - link
Those who know me well enough to entrust me with their computer, know me well enough not to come close with a Macbook.And I am not even all *that* prejudiced. I loved my Apple ][ (clone), went for the PC because even my 80286 already ran Unix and I was a computer scientist after all.
I keep doing Hackintoshs every now and then, just to get an understanding of how a Mac feels and because it's a bit of a challenge.
But it's seriously behind in just about every aspect important to me: The combination of Linux and Windows gives me much more in any direction, for work and for fun. And mixing both is much less of a technical issue than life-balance.
And then the notion of having your most personal handheld computer managed by an external party is just so wrong, I am flabbergasted that Apple managers still walk free, when computer sabotage is a felony.
The Apple ][ didn't even screw down the top lid. Swapping out components and parts, adding all sorts of functionality and upgrades made it great.
This solid brick of aluminum, glue, soldered on chips and hapless keyboard mechanics they call an Apple computer these days is just so wrong, I'd throw it into recycling the minute I got one for free. I don't know if I could give an Apple notebook or phone even to a foe, let alone a friend.
domboy - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
Since Microsoft used this in the Surface Laptop 3, I wonder if they also used it in the Surface Pro X since that also has a removable SSD. I'll be interested to find out...taz-nz - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
Now we just need them to apply this tech to a standard 2280 form factor and give us a 4TB m.2 SSD, doesn't have to have best in class performance just a consumer class 4TB m.2 SSD.Death666Angel - Saturday, October 19, 2019 - link
There already are Samsung and Toshiba 4TB M,2 drives.