Toshiba RC100 NVMe SSD Anandtech Review

[UsandThem]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12819/the-toshiba-rc100-ssd-review

Some users will value the RC100 for its unique features such as the M.2 2242 form factor. Most users simply want to know if low-cost NVMe drives like the RC100 mean that NVMe is ready to push SATA out of the mainstream SSD market. The answer there is still clearly "no", but we are getting closer to having NVMe drives that can beat SATA on both price and performance.

Interesting drive, but it appears the 120GB and the 240GB version should be avoided. When filled, the 120GB loses 90% of its performance, which is pretty horrible. However, at current pricing the MyDigitalSSD SBX is still the entry-level NVMe drive to beat. Otherwise, a person who was willing to pay $155 for the 480GB version of this drive, would be very wise to spend the extra $20 and get the HP EX900 instead.

 

[XavierMace]

For most scenario's there's better option but I think the importance of the 2242 form factor was a bit understated. It's the only 2242 form factor NVMe drive on the market right now (AFAIK). There's a pretty decent number of laptops around right now with a 2242 slot that are lacking a drive to plug into them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have to wonder, too, if there's a ultility, to being able to plug these into a PCI-E m.2 (short - aka 2242) slot, that was designed initially for a PCI-E m.2 Wifi. Would that work? Would it need BIOS support? (Maybe just to boot off of?)

 

[XavierMace]

I have to wonder, too, if there's a ultility, to being able to plug these into a PCI-E m.2 (short - aka 2242) slot, that was designed initially for a PCI-E m.2 Wifi. Would that work? Would it need BIOS support? (Maybe just to boot off of?)

That would be the slot I'm referring to. It's an M.2 PCIe slot. Generally the only thing stopping you from plugging a drive into it is the lack of a 2242 PCIe drive. Booting off it would require BIOS support, but if it already has an NVMe boot drive, it should be able to boot off either slot.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I was thinking of mini-ITX boards with a PCI-E wifi socket, but no NVMe M.2 socket.

(But BIOS boot support???)

 

[cbn]

Host memory buffer works well for QD1:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12819/the-toshiba-rc100-ssd-review/6

 

[VirtualLarry]

About that BIOS support, for laptops and whatnot with a PCI-E wifi socket... couldn't the PCI-E SSD, also contain a PCI Option ROM? There was an early OEM Samsung SSD that did that. (Was it the 950 Pro?)

That would REALLY be ideal, for upgrading those older laptops, with an NVMe SSD (granted, they would be limited to x1 lanes, through the Wifi socket). But imagine the upgrade possibilities.

Edit: But some OEM branded laptops had OEM whitelists for the Wifi socket. Or was that strictly limited to Wifi devices, and a PCI-E NVMe drive with an Option ROM would be allowed to boot, regardless?

 

[LightningZ71]

Looking at some of the performance results, I can't help but wonder if some of the performance potential of this drive is being lost to their decision to use a controller that only has a 2 PCI-E lane interface. I know that higher end NVME drives use 4 lanes, and the spec supports it, so why not here? The difference in silicon cost would have to be negligible. As far as I know, there are no more royalties for adding additional lanes. The reason that I'm hung up on this is that, in the case where HMB is used, the PCI-E interface is used a whole heck of a lot for handling the cache traffic for the drive in addition to the writes and reads. The ability of the drive to fill and empty that cache rapidly is one of the key factors of performance for it. Going to 4 lanes would double that throughput and would have likely helped with a lot of those benchmarks. I would have also liked to have seen it tested with a few larger host cache sizes.