Toshiba Announces Q300 And Q300 Pro Consumer SSDs
by Billy Tallis on September 4, 2015 8:00 AM EST
After all the enterprise and OEM drive announcements last month surrounding Flash Memory Summit, we've finally got a new drive to talk about that will be sold directly to consumers and available through retailers. Toshiba's Q300 and Q300 Pro drives are client-focused SATA drives using Toshiba-branded flash and controllers. The Q300 uses TLC flash and has an endurance rating of about 0.23 drive writes per day for three years. The Q300 Pro uses MLC flash and is rated for about 0.34 drive writes per day for five years.
| Toshiba Q300 SATA SSDs | ||||
| Capacity | 960GB | 480GB | 240GB | 120GB |
| NAND | Toshiba TLC | |||
| Controller | Toshiba TC358790 | |||
| Sequential Read | 550 MB/s | |||
| Sequential Write | 530 MB/s | |||
| 4kB Random Read IOPS | 87k | |||
| 4kB Random Write IOPS | 83k | |||
| Endurance Rating | 240TB | 120TB | 60TB | 30TB |
| SLC caching | Yes | |||
| QSBC Error Correction | No | |||
| Active Power Consumption | 5.1W | |||
| Idle Power Consumption | 1.1W | |||
| MSRP | $449.99 | $309.99 | $159.99 | $99.99 |
TLC-based drives require more power for writes, but the idle power rating is quite high and makes the Q300 unsuitable for mobile use.
| Toshiba Q300 Pro SATA SSDs | |||
| Capacity | 512GB | 256GB | 128GB |
| NAND | Toshiba MLC | ||
| Controller | Toshiba TC58NC1000 | ||
| Sequential Read | 550 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 520 MB/s | ||
| 4kB Random Read IOPS | 92k | ||
| 4kB Random Write IOPS | 63k | ||
| Endurance Rating | 320TB | 160TB | 80TB |
| SLC caching | Yes | ||
| QSBC Error Correction | Yes | ||
| Active Power Consumption | 3.3W | ||
| Idle Power Consumption | 125mW | ||
| MSRP | $389.99 | $199.99 | $124.99 |
The Q300 Pro seems tuned for a read-oriented workload, with significantly lower random write performance than the Q300, despite TLC being inherently slower for writes. On the other hand, power consumption is much more reasonable, although the Q300 Pro idle power is still a little behind the competition.
The Q300 Pro is listed as using the same TC58 controller that is in the TLC-based OCZ Trion 100, which bore suspicious similarity to the Phison S10 as seen in the Corsair Neutron XT.
The Q300 is shipping now, and the Q300 Pro will ship later this month, when ordered directly from Toshiba's website. Our review samples are on the same timetable, so look for our benchmarks in a few weeks.
Source: Toshiba
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lilmoe - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
lol didn't even realize it was more expensive than the 850 Pro, I subconsciously looked up the price of the EVO thinking it was targeting that.These prices are a sad joke. Or Samsung is just killing the competition. Performance difference isn't significant anymore for most consumers, it's all about endurance and price. I myself have the 850 Pro (because I run databases on my PC and need the consistency and extra endurance), but I recommend the 850 EVO for everyone else now. It's also much more available and has better warranty.
eek2121 - Saturday, September 5, 2015 - link
*yawn* another day, another SSD. Samsung is the king of SATA SSDs. These companies need to differentiate themselves. Either go PCIE like intel, or come up with better pricing.StrangerGuy - Sunday, September 6, 2015 - link
$450 for a 1TB SATA TLC drive? I can see Toshiba is trying to be the greatest comedian ever.Won't even touch this at *half* the asking price.
And it's kinda funny and sad at the same time that everytime a non Intel/Crucial/Samsung SSD release announcment appears on a AT it automatically becomes an no holds barred bashing spree, for good reason.
yankeeDDL - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Is it me, or these things are priced out of this world?Isn't the 850 EVO below $180? for the 512GB? Why would anyone spend $310 on this?
Impulses - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
It's at $160 pretty often actually. I paid $310/340 for my 2x 1TB EVOs. They've been going for $340 on Amazon all summer long, cheaper elsewhere during sales, haven't seen sub $300 yet. But yeah, asking just as much for half the capacity seems insane.YoloPascual - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Those people at the SSD division of Toshiba/OCZ are either dumb or does not look into the marketplace.c woof - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Samsung SSD 850 EVO MSRPs 12/2014Capacity 120GB 250GB 500GB 1TB
MSRP $100 $150 $270 $500
c woof - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
And the endurance for the 500GB/1TB was 150TB (82GB/day), 75TB for the others.3ogdy - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
Sorry, but I fail to see what's interesting here. The pricing scheme has nothing interesting.In an over-saturated market, they pop up with SSDs that follow the exact same path nearly everyone else does:
$100 for 120GB,
$150 for 240GB,
$300 for the 500GB version and so on.
Samsung's got the 120GB 850 EVO (TLC-based) for $73 (Toshiba:$100),
250GB 850 EVO for $98 (Toshiba's 240GB for $160)
500GB EVO for $175 (Toshiba: $310 for 480GB),
1TB 850 EVO for $399 (Toshiba : $450 for 960GB)
Toshiba's products are completely misplaced in the market.
As for the MLC drives, Samsung's got 850PROs :
128GB for $95 (Toshiba: $125),
256GB for $140 (Toshiba: $200),
512GB for $240 (Toshiba: $390)
How many SSDs Toshiba expects to sell remains a secret...but mind you Samsung transitioned to 48-layer 256Gbit dies so pricing on their most price competitive products is about to improve.
Bad news, Toshiba. I don't know what OCZ's up to, but I'm definitely not buying that, even with Toshiba's NAND inside. Too many got played.
3ogdy - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
BTW, prices are taken from www.newegg.com. I've just checked the page out, which means I could buy those SSDs right now for that price.