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Introduction
Welcome to Myce’s review of the Toshiba PX04SMB Series of SAS
3 Enterprise SSDs.
Frankly, I was disappointed by the first wave of SAS 3 drives
which didn't unlock the performance potential promised by SAS 3, and its 1200
Gbit/s bandwidth; but with this drive Toshiba smashes it out of the park!
Toshiba groups its series of Enterprise SSD products according
to endurance - High Endurance (25 DWPD), Mid Endurance (10 DWPD), Value (3
DWPD), and Read Intensive (1 DWPD); where DWPD is the number of Drive Writes
Per Day and one DWPD indicates that the drive can be written and re-written to
full capacity once a day for five years.
The Toshiba PX04SMB160, which is the test subject of this
review, is a member of the PX04SMB series, which sits in the mid endurance
group. The PX04SMB series is available in capacities of 400, 800, 1600, and
3200 GB (the PX04SMB040, PX04SMB080, PX04SMB160, and PX04SMB320 respectively).
A ground breaking innovation also enables customers to
configure the power characteristics of the PX04SMB series into one of two modes
– Power Efficiency, and Maximum Performance (we understand Toshiba also refers
to these as 9 Watt mode and 12 Watt mode).
It is also important to note that the maximum level of
performance for the PX04SMB series is often achieved with the drive running in
a ‘dual port’, multi-path IO operation. Dual Port operation enables IO traffic
to be aggregated across the drive’s two ports (as provided by its SAS
architecture). Alternatively, the two ports can be used for failover purposes
so that access to the drive can persist even if one of the controllers/paths it
is attached to fails. Dual Port operation can easily be confused with ‘Wide Port’
operation, which is another SAS feature that enables one to take multiple SAS
ports and give them the same World Wide Name (WWN). A wide port also enables
the aggregation of IO traffic across multiple ports (I must admit I have in the
past been confused in my use of these terms).
So there are multiple configurations that the PX04SMB160 can
be tested in, given by the combinations of power modes (power efficiency and
maximum performance) and port operations (single and dual). With our typical
commitment to providing readers with comprehensive test results we have elected
to present results for our standard SNIA tests in single port for both power
modes and results for our standard Myce/OakGate tests in single and dual port
mode for both power modes. This means there are a lot of results to present –
I will try and label things clearly, to reduce the risk of readers (and me)
getting lost.
We take this opportunity to thank Toshiba for permitting Myce
to test the drive in both power modes. The way in which the power mode is
configured is only disclosed to customers once they have entered into a
non-disclosure agreement.
Please read on as I feel this is the best Enterprise SSD I
have ever tested!
Market Positioning and Specification
Market Positioning
This is how Toshiba positions the PX04SMB series of drives –
Specification
Here is Toshiba's specification for the PX04SMB series –
Here is a picture of the PX04SMB160 that I tested, plugged
into a newly acquired dual port connector -
The PX04SMB series uses Toshiba’s 19nm eMLC NAND and a new
Toshiba designed System on Chip (SoC) controller.
The case is thicker than most SSDs (15mm) and includes the
distinctive cooling fins that you can see clearly in the following picture –
Now let's head to the next page, to look at Myce’s
Enterprise Testing Methodology.....
