The Toshiba XG5 (1TB) SSD Review
by Billy Tallis on August 3, 2017 9:01 AM ESTPower Management
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.
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.
The active power consumption of the Toshiba XG5 is very close to that of Samsung's 960 PRO and EVO, but the WD Black and Intel 600p are even better. However, all of these drives have much higher active idle power use than is typical for SATA SSDs.
The idle power consumption of the XG5 with all the power-saving features turned on is again close to Samsung, but slightly higher and the WD Black puts even Samsung to shame.
The wake-up latencies from the idle power states reported above vary widely. The Intel SSD 750 doesn't support any of the advanced power management features of NVMe and thus has a minimal wake-up latency. The Patriot Hellfire's APST implementation is broken, causing it to also not use any power saving mode on our testbed. While the Toshiba XG5 was close to Samsung in terms of power saved, its wake-up latency is an order of magnitude higher than that of the 960 PRO and 960 EVO, and almost 150 times higher than the 950 PRO. The WD Black clearly pays a price for its great power saving with a wake-up latency of over 120ms.
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drajitshnew - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Disappointing, samsung is becoming the new Intel.ddriver - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Don't worry, sammy is in a process of wing clipping.Babar Javied - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
What do you mean? Can you please elaborate on this 'wing clipping'.As for the this SSD, it all comes down to price, which unfortunately we do not know because it's an OEM product. It's true that I personally would get a Samsung SSD for myself, but if the price is right, this would most certainly be a consideration where speed is not of absolute importance, as is usually the case in home environments.
ddriver - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
I mean downsizing, samsung has become too good for its own good, or more like for the good of the contemporary geopolitical agenda. The problem is not that much with how big and influential samsung is, but with how they become a threat to certain US corporations, whose competition is seen as a threat to the US national security.euler007 - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Samsung is heavily supported by the government of South Korea, which depends on the US government now more than ever. They have to be careful not to hurt American businesses to preserve their relationship.ddriver - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
A.D.O.Y :) But let's be honest and admit SK is a puppet state. They did however come a long way from having the bulk of their economy be from sex slavery to US military occupation forces. That last part was not a joke (I wish it was), look it up.The_Assimilator - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
You're a vilely offensive piece of shit on so many levels.Hurr Durr - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
Oy vey, muh hurt burger feelinz, dey haet us fo da freedumb. Even ddriver can be right sometimes, and this time he is.ddriver - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
Yeah, I am bad for condemning sex slavery, shame on me! Or were you simply talking to a mirror just now?Samus - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
That is some extreme conspiracy theory, not to mention a violation of free market principles. Samsung is not heavily supported by any government, and Samsung doesn't give a fuck about hurting american businesses anymore than Apple gives a fuck about hurting Korean businesses. These companies are at war for your money, and that's good for everyone.