By: Aaron Lai
January 13, 2017
"Why do you like writing storage reviews so much?" I inquired the Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kwan. "Because it is so easy," he replied. If there is anything I think about when someone says storage reviews, easy is not the first thing that comes to mind. As you know, I love writing reviews of keyboards, mice, and also consumer electronics. This is purely because it is interesting to use. While storage and other hardware is necessary for your computer to run, on a day-to-day basis, you probably touch your keyboard and mouse more than any sort of hard drive, in a physical sense. In addition, you can tell when you have a great keyboard or a great mouse almost immediately, while the differences between storage options are not always obvious. On an aside, this is why we do reviews, to help you find the differences between these options. As for me, I think I have a lot to learn for hard drive and solid state drive reviews, since it is definitely out of my comfort zone. In fact, the last solid state drive I wrote about was over a year ago, the Patriot Ignite 480GB. Today is time for a new drive, the Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB. Gone are the days of expensive solid state drives, and the TL100 is another example of this. This is not the first time I have taken a look at cheaper storage options, but I still have to wonder what was reduced to keep the Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB at such a low price. Is it still suitable to replace the cheaper spinny disk? Let us see what this means when we take a closer look at the Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB today.
Our review unit of the Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB came in a relatively large brown corrugated cardboard box. Today's review unit arrived not from Taiwan, but rather Irvine, California, USA, which is Toshiba's headquarters in North America. Using the FedEx International Priority service, the TL100 arrived between large packets of air, to ensure zero damage to the drive itself. Thankfully, the box itself is in good condition with no marks or holes to speak of on the outside.
Just like the Toshiba OCZ VX500 512GB reviewed by Jonathan Kwan several months ago, the Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB features a similar box design, with the box looking like a larger version of the SSD inside. Of course, the VX500 has a different appearance compared to past OCZ or Toshiba drives. At the bottom, we have the manufacturer Toshiba shown, with "OCZ TL100" written on the right. A scaled down view of the TL100 240GB is shown on the front panel. The capacity of the drive, 240GB, is on the top right corner. For your information, the Toshiba OCZ TL100 comes in both 120GB and 240GB sizes. The back of the box shows some features and specifications.
We have grabbed the specifications from the manufacturer's website:
PERFORMANCE
Max Sequential Read: 550 MB/s
Max Sequential Write: 530 MB/s
Max Random Read (4KB, QD32): 85,000 IOPS
Max Random Write (4KB, QD32): 80,000 IOPS
ENDURANCE
TBW (Total Bytes Written): 60 TB
Daily Usage Guidelines: 54 GB/day
PHYSICAL
Capacities: 120GB, 240GB
NAND Flash Memory Type: TLC
Interface: Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/s (SATA III)
Form Factor: 2.5-inch, 7mm height
Dimension (L x W x H): 100.00 x 69.85 x 7.00 mm
Drive Weight: 37.5g (typ.)
POWER REQUIREMENTS
Supply Voltage: 5V±5 %
Power Consumption: Active - Up to 1.6 W (typ.), Idle - 440 mW (typ.)
DevSleep Power: 10mW max
ENVIRONMENTAL
Operating Temperature: 0°C ~ 70°C
Storage Temperature: -45°C ~ 85°C
Shock Resistance: 14.7 km/s^2, 1500G/0.5ms
Vibration: 196 m/s^2 {20 Grms} (Peak, 10 to 2,000 Hz)
Certifications: CE, BSMI, RCM, KCM, UL, RoHS + RoHS2
RELIABILITY / SECURITY
MTBF: 1.5 million hours
Product Health Monitoring: Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) Support
COMPATIBILITY
Serial ATA (SATA): ATA/ATAPI Command Set-3 (ACS-3) and Serial ATA revision 3.2 interface specifications supported
Operating System: Windows / Linux / Mac OSX
Connector Type: Standard SATA Power Connector
Targeted Applications: Client desktops and laptops, new build and upgrade solutions; HDD Replacement
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Performance Optimization: TRIM, Idle Time Garbage Collection
Service & Support: 3-Year Advanced Warranty Program, Toll-Free Tech Support
Software: SSD management software: SSD Utility and Command Line Online Update Tool (CLOUT)
Out of the box, we have a pretty standard set of things, which is not much. The Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB is enclosed in a plastic tray to ensure nothing rattles around in the box. There are also two pieces of documentation, which has information about usage for the drive and warranty contact numbers. Just to note, the Toshiba OCZ TL100 240GB comes with three years of Toshiba's Advanced Warranty Program, which is one of the easiest warranty systems to go through, though I hope you will never need to.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark Vantage
10. Benchmark: PCMark 8
11. Conclusion
