The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
POWER CONSUMPTION
For our power consumption testing, we have the drive connected to the system as a secondary drive. To record the wattage, we are now utilizing a Quarch Technology Programmable Power Module. It allows us to accurately measure power consumption over time and is flexible enough to allow us to test any SSD that comes our way.
When enterprise class storage is deployed, not only one or two drives are set out in a deployment, hundreds to thousands are, therefore, when booting a NAS or SAN it is important to ensure the power sources will be able to provide enough power to the systems. First we look at idle power consumption and workload averages at a QD of 32. This helps us gauge IOPS per Watt.
Our power analysis may change as time goes on, but for now we are looking at just a few metrics with the main goal of measuring our results against the manufacturer’s ratings.
Overall, we can see that power consumption is extremely well-regulated. Nearly across the board the Toshiba HK4E consumes less power than the SM863. Only during 4K random read and sequential write does the SM863 have a slight advantage. Idle power consumption is better than the 1.2W spec as well and the average consumption results are well below the 4.5W active rating.
Now, looking at the IOPS per Watt under workloads we can see that the HK4E is again, extremely efficient. In almost every test, except for 4K read and sequential write, the HK4E is more efficient than the rest of the pool! The Micron 510DC doesn’t stand a chance here, except in pure 4K read where it also surpasses the HK4E.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
The Toshiba HK4E has done very well for itself throughout our benchmarking sessions. Sequential reads and writes both surpassed their rated specifications with ease. Random 4K read performance came in at 93K IOPS, which is nearly 20K higher than the manufacturers rating. 4K write performance also surpassed the manufacturer’s rating and averaged around 40K IOPS instead of the stated 30K IOPS. 8K read and write performance was also very good with 56K/22K IOPS read/write results.
During our server profile tests the HK4E truly shined, and for the most part, dominated the competition we compared it to. In the database and email server tests the HK4E gapped the Samsung SM863 by a large margin from QD4-16 and left the Micron 510DC in the dust. During the file server test it also proved to be the best performer from those mid-range QDs, only at QD1, 2, and 32 did the Samsung SM863 match its performance. Finally, during the web server test the HK4E took a loss to the SM863, but still did very well with close performance all the way through.
One of the key marketing points for the HK4 series SSDs is their low power consumption and high power efficiency. During today’s review we were able to see just how efficient the HK4E was compared to the competition for ourselves. According to our charts, their marketing doesn’t lie. The Toshiba HK4E is a very efficient SSD, especially in mixed workload use. It was more efficiency than every comparison drive in our pool during the server profiles and was only less efficient in the 4K 100% read and sequential 100% write tests. Overall, we are very impressed.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Toshiba HK4E is a great performer and very power efficient. This SATA 6GB/s SSD put up a great fight against the Samsung SM863, which is one of the best SATA SSDs out now. Keep in mind that by default the Samsung SM863 is not over provisioned to the degree that the Toshiba HK4E is, but possibly has the capability to deliver better performance and have more endurance than what we shown as tested once over provisioned equally. Still, with testing the SSDs as they are straight out of the box, the HK4E beat out the SM863 in many tests and had a killer consistency profile to boot. The Micron 510DC really isn’t in the same arena as these two when it comes to performance, but we felt to include it in our comparison because it is a 3DWPD rated drive as well.
As we mentioned before, the Toshiba HK4E comes with every enterprise feature you could want from a SATA SSD. It has power loss protection, end to end data path protection, hot plug support, and even comes in SED variants for enhanced security. Utilizing Toshiba’s TC58 controller and 15nm MLC NAND as well as 28% over provisioning, capacities range from 200GB to 1600GB. This makes it great for read heavy workloads such as streaming and it even outputs great consistent performance during mix workload use. To top things off, its 5 year warranty isn’t too shabby either.
Just like the HK4R we award the HK4E our Goal Seal of approval! If you are in the market for a killer SATA 6GB/s SSD for your enterprise systems and you need a bit more endurance and performance over most of the entry level devices, definitely consider the Toshiba HK4E.
