Toshiba P300 Desktop PC Hard Drive 4 TB

Performance:If you don't need large single storage, get the smaller capacity 7200rpm one. I own a P300 3TB drive which spins at 7200rpm and comparing the speed of transfer with the 6TB 5400rpm one, it's definitely noticeable. It's okay for home use.The seller packed it well. What surprised me was it came in a commercial package instead of the usual oem package.

Failed in 9 months; slow RMA process

While it worked, it worked pretty well and provided respectable performance for a data drive (CDM results below). No issues with noise either. Unfortunately, it lost a lot of sectors about 9 months after I received it and started occasionally making weird noises. In copying data off of the drive so I could send it back to Toshiba, I found that its bad sectors took about a dozen files with it. All of those files were recoverable because I have everything backed up in Backblaze. The RMA process was peculiar and slower than I would've liked. First off, instead of replacing the drive, they sent me a prepaid Visa card as a refund for the purchase price. This seems kind of counterproductive, as it got me seriously considering replacing it with a Seagate or WD drive. And ... MoreWhile it worked, it worked pretty well and provided respectable performance for a data drive (CDM results below). No issues with noise either. Unfortunately, it lost a lot of sectors about 9 months after I received it and started occasionally making weird noises. In copying data off of the drive so I could send it back to Toshiba, I found that its bad sectors took about a dozen files with it. All of those files were recoverable because I have everything backed up in Backblaze. The RMA process was peculiar and slower than I would've liked. First off, instead of replacing the drive, they sent me a prepaid Visa card as a refund for the purchase price. This seems kind of counterproductive, as it got me seriously considering replacing it with a Seagate or WD drive. And the card took 3-4 weeks to get here after Toshiba received the drive, which was much longer than the 4-ish business days that UPS shipped it back to them within. to their credit, the email said it might take 6-8 weeks, but a long wait is still annoying even when you're warned about it. But in the end, I think I'm going to try my luck with a slightly larger Toshiba X300. Hopefully, I don't get another lemon. While it worked, I got these performance results from CrystalDiskMark: Seq Q32 T1 4K Q8 T8 4K Q32 T1 4K Q1 T1 Read Write Read Write Read Write Read Write 163.7 161.9 0.703 0.89 0.724 0.957 0.347 0.85

It's better than I expected!

This is my first Toshiba hard drive. I've been into computers since the early 90s, and I have always thought highly of Western Digital and Seagate. I always believed it wouldn't be wise to buy a hard drive from any other brand, but that's probably because I bought a Maxtor once and it didn't last long at all. Well, after looking at this hard drive and holding it in my hands and working with it during the physical installation, I would say it's very high in quality. After installation, I found it to be very fast, very quiet (I can't hear it at all from where I'm sitting), it runs very cool and it's even packaged very well. I copied 382 GB of files to it shortly after installing the drive (I copied the files from a Samsung 840 EVO solid state drive), and all 382 GB of ... MoreThis is my first Toshiba hard drive. I've been into computers since the early 90s, and I have always thought highly of Western Digital and Seagate. I always believed it wouldn't be wise to buy a hard drive from any other brand, but that's probably because I bought a Maxtor once and it didn't last long at all. Well, after looking at this hard drive and holding it in my hands and working with it during the physical installation, I would say it's very high in quality. After installation, I found it to be very fast, very quiet (I can't hear it at all from where I'm sitting), it runs very cool and it's even packaged very well. I copied 382 GB of files to it shortly after installing the drive (I copied the files from a Samsung 840 EVO solid state drive), and all 382 GB of files copied over in less than 40 minutes (I would say it took 35 minutes, but I'm not completely sure). If it had been exactly 40 minutes, then that would be an average speed of 163 MB/sec. If it were exactly 35 minutes, then that would be an average speed of 186 MB/sec. I am even using my SATA 3.0 Gb/s connection on the Intel P67 SATA controller (I have Intel Rapid Storage Technology installed too). Don't get me wrong, I want to use my SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, but I don't have a choice right now. I have to wait until I finish setting up this new hard drive to replace my current storage drives. So yeah, this hard drive is quite nice, and I got mine for only $69.99 shipped. The normal price seems to be about $79.99. This isn't bad at all for a good high-performance 3 TB hard drive! I'm extremely happy with my purchase. ********** Note: When you format drives that are larger than 2 GB, use the GPT format. If you use MBR, then you will not get any more than 2 TB. Or, you might end up with a 2 TB partition and a 750 GB partition. **********

It's just a great drive

Don't remember if I bought it from SCAN, but it's a great drive. What I mean by that is...it lasts me about 6 years so far, it's fast and it's reasonably quiet. I like to be patient with reviews, since things can go wrong. Not with this one. Toshiba is underrated brand in my opinion, and I don't think only in regards to hard drives, but other products as well. Reasonable pricing helps, too.

Looked good... but it wasn't

I bought 4 of these drives together to use as a RAID 5 array. Performance was good for the use I had in mind. I installed them and configured them on November 2016, three (3) failed in March 2017. One is not detectable at all (makes a nice screeching noise when plugged in) the other two have developed several bad sectors (count was still going up as I was removing them from the array). I checked the SMART logs from the system (each drive ran a short test every 2 days and a long test every week) and no issues where reported on any drive (or any of the tests) until the day of failure. All three (3) drives began to fail on the same day within hours of each other. This was NOT power related as all of my storage systems are protected by UPS and nothing else is ... MoreI bought 4 of these drives together to use as a RAID 5 array. Performance was good for the use I had in mind. I installed them and configured them on November 2016, three (3) failed in March 2017. One is not detectable at all (makes a nice screeching noise when plugged in) the other two have developed several bad sectors (count was still going up as I was removing them from the array). I checked the SMART logs from the system (each drive ran a short test every 2 days and a long test every week) and no issues where reported on any drive (or any of the tests) until the day of failure. All three (3) drives began to fail on the same day within hours of each other. This was NOT power related as all of my storage systems are protected by UPS and nothing else is experiencing any issues (I have five RAID 5 arrays all on servers that are next to each other, only the one with these drives developed failures). Two of the other arrays are running matched Western Digital drives, so I replaced these with some more Western Digital drives as those seem to work a very long time before failure. I'll go ahead and put the three P300s in for warranty replacement, but whatever I receive back from the manufacturer will not be put back to do anything of value. ** This is an update to my previous review of this drive. I sent all four drives in for RMA as the fourth drive also developed issues and failed. There online RMA process was simple enough, however it has been 10+ weeks since they received the drives and approved a reward card in exchange and no rewards card has arrived. According to their own RMA emails, I should have received "the Reward card within six to seven weeks after [my] defective product has been received and verified by Toshiba", I guess Toshiba's RMA support is just as bad as the drives. Or maybe they use these same drives in their RMA refund fulfillment systems...

Respectable Drive Performance

• Test setup: Installed in an external drive enclosure with a fan, connected via eSATA. Computer runs Intel i7 w/ 32GB RAM. • File transfer performance: This drive… Test #1 (Drive initially empty, transferred from Samsung 830 SSD) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 103 MB/s in 30m 56s. Test #2 (After test #1, transferred from same drive) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 49 MB/s in 30m 56s. • File transfer performance: Reference drive (Samsung-HD204UI-2GB) Test #1 (Drive initially empty, transferred from Samsung 830 SSD) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 56 MB/s in 56m 46s. Test #2 (After test #1, transferred from same drive) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 49 MB/s in 1h 40m 49s . • Sequential writes are very fast but are not ... More• Test setup: Installed in an external drive enclosure with a fan, connected via eSATA. Computer runs Intel i7 w/ 32GB RAM. • File transfer performance: This drive… Test #1 (Drive initially empty, transferred from Samsung 830 SSD) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 103 MB/s in 30m 56s. Test #2 (After test #1, transferred from same drive) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 49 MB/s in 30m 56s. • File transfer performance: Reference drive (Samsung-HD204UI-2GB) Test #1 (Drive initially empty, transferred from Samsung 830 SSD) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 56 MB/s in 56m 46s. Test #2 (After test #1, transferred from same drive) 267 large files, 186.85 total, transferred 49 MB/s in 1h 40m 49s . • Sequential writes are very fast but are not always indicative of real-world scenarios. • Comparing large data reads and writes between this drive and the reference drive, reads on the this Toshiba drive outshine the reference Samsung drive; however, for large data writes the this Toshiba drive underperforms the older “slower” reference Samsung drive. Comparison of both drives equally full. First – this drive (Toshiba): Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.663 MB/s [ 161.9 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.822 MB/s [ 200.7 IOPS] Second – reference (Samsung): Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.451 MB/s [ 110.1 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.937 MB/s [ 228.8 IOPS] • Is this drive “better” or more performant than any other drive with similar specs? That depends on how you will use the drive. If you are budget conscious and still cannot afford an SSD, you should give this a whirl for your daily needs, but keep in mind that you won’t get that much more. • Finally, CrystalDiskMark benchmarking shows degradation in performance as the drive goes from empty to full. This is typical and to be expected. • This drive (Empty) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 6.0.1 x64 (UWP) (C) 2007-2018 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : https://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s] * KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 187.122 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 199.187 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 1.838 MB/s [ 448.7 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 1.697 MB/s [ 414.3 IOPS] Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.823 MB/s [ 445.1 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.016 MB/s [ 248.0 IOPS] Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.529 MB/s [ 129.2 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.853 MB/s [ 208.3 IOPS] Test : 1024 MiB [I: 0.0% (0.3/1863.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec] Date : 2018/08/01 18:06:10 OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 17134] (x64) • Full: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 6.0.1 x64 (UWP) (C) 2007-2018 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : https://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s] * KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 105.851 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 115.172 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 1.745 MB/s [ 426.0 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 1.757 MB/s [ 429.0 IOPS] Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.666 MB/s [ 406.7 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.683 MB/s [ 166.7 IOPS] Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.663 MB/s [ 161.9 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.822 MB/s [ 200.7 IOPS] Test : 1024 MiB [I: 90.3% (1682.0/1863.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec] Date : 2018/08/05 13:51:09 OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 17134] (x64)

Solid Performance

Received the P300 drive for review. It arrived undamaged and well packaged. The P300 offer good value by offering good space of 3TB and good performance. The drive has been used as my main steam drive for over a month, it has been quiet and performed with no issues. The drive been tested under HD Tune a few times. During any tests the hottest the drive got was 38C but for the most part during benchmarking temps were between 34-36C in a case without any extra fans. So in a proper well ventilated case temps should be much lower. I copied 2.7TB worth of steam games to it, and been using it non stop. For overall performance the drives showed average data rates of 170 MB/sec. Minimums in benchmarks were 130MB/sec with maximums of 195 MB/sec. Burst rates where up to a ... MoreReceived the P300 drive for review. It arrived undamaged and well packaged. The P300 offer good value by offering good space of 3TB and good performance. The drive has been used as my main steam drive for over a month, it has been quiet and performed with no issues. The drive been tested under HD Tune a few times. During any tests the hottest the drive got was 38C but for the most part during benchmarking temps were between 34-36C in a case without any extra fans. So in a proper well ventilated case temps should be much lower. I copied 2.7TB worth of steam games to it, and been using it non stop. For overall performance the drives showed average data rates of 170 MB/sec. Minimums in benchmarks were 130MB/sec with maximums of 195 MB/sec. Burst rates where up to a maximum of 280MB/sec with averages of 250-270 MB/s Overall the performance for the drive is solid, and getting 3TB for the current price of $75 USD its a great buy. I've used this drive heavily on my steam box as the data drive and haven't had any issues. Id recommend this drive for anyone who needs good amounts of storage at a good price.

Very good 3.5 hard drive.

- The sale package contains only a hard drive, there are no extras (bulk drive). The hard drive is rated “for everyday desktop computing” by the manufacturer. The drive is fine for normal use in desktops computers. However, that means, the hard drive in not really meant for continuous use. I would not have used it in NAS or NVR setups. - I installed the Toshiba P300 3TB in my tower, and Windows 10 had no trouble initializing, formatting and partitioning the drive for use. I then simultaneously copied copied a total of 1.4 TB of data to P300 from my other 3 internal drives. The average write speed over internal SATA was between 110 and 130 MB/s. During the process, the internal temp rose slowly from 28 C to 34 C at the end of the transfer. - I then copied some data ... More- The sale package contains only a hard drive, there are no extras (bulk drive). The hard drive is rated “for everyday desktop computing” by the manufacturer. The drive is fine for normal use in desktops computers. However, that means, the hard drive in not really meant for continuous use. I would not have used it in NAS or NVR setups. - I installed the Toshiba P300 3TB in my tower, and Windows 10 had no trouble initializing, formatting and partitioning the drive for use. I then simultaneously copied copied a total of 1.4 TB of data to P300 from my other 3 internal drives. The average write speed over internal SATA was between 110 and 130 MB/s. During the process, the internal temp rose slowly from 28 C to 34 C at the end of the transfer. - I then copied some data from P300 over SATA connection to an internal SSD drive. The transfer rate was 150 to 170 MB/s. - I then performed chkdsk on the drive and there were no issues. No bad sectors. - When not in use, the internal temp of the P300 drive stays at about 31 C. - Toshiba is a known brand in mechanical hard drive business. They have been around for a while and their drives are generally reliable. However, mechanical drives, regardless of brand, do fail at various rates. Valuable data should always be backed up or duplicated in RAID setup. - I have used this drive for 2 weeks and I have not encountered any issues. No clicking, freezing, whining, excessive heat or data errors. With that in mind, I would recommend P300 drive for a casual use as a PC drive. The P300 arrived well insulated, in a well cushioned package from newegg. P300 is inexpensive, it’s a bare drive, so no extras included. The performance (read/write speeds) is quite good, and falls within the range of similar mechanical drives. Toshiba brand is known. The warranty is acceptable at 2 years.