INTRODUCTION

   All Solid State Drives are not created equal because not everyone wants one for the same purpose/use. That's what a good friend of mine in the SSD industry told me a couple of years back and to date he has yet to be proven wrong by anyone including myself. Of course the same reasoning applies for pretty much everything in life from coffee makers, smartphones, computer peripherals and TV screens up to cars and entire houses so although not something new it is what it is. Now just over a week ago we tested the latest SSD model by Kingston the SSDNow V300 which carried Toshiba's brand new 19nm toggle NAND Flash Modules. As it is quite natural however Toshiba had already announced their own SSD featuring the same 19nm toggle NAND Flash Modules back in early summer and today we will be taking a look at the 512GB variant the THNSNF512GCSS.

   Toshiba Europe Storage Products Division (SPD) has remained at the forefront of the storage industry for over 40 years and is the world's only storage supplier that owns design, development, manufacturing, sales and other infrastructure functions spanning the enterprise, mobile and retail environments for both HDD and SSD products. Customers are original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), system integrators and distributors within the EMEA region. As a leading provider of integrated storage solutions and as the principal inventor of NAND flash storage, Toshiba sets many of today’s industry standards for storage technology. Throughout its history, Toshiba SPD has revolutionized the design and development of storage devices and its drives can be found inside the world's leading GPS navigation systems, consumer electronics, computers and enterprise solutions. In addition, Toshiba Storage Products Division offers an extensive range of advanced technology drives such as high durability 24/7, extended temperature and SSDs for the consumer, industrial, enterprise and automotive sector.

   Unlike the SSDNow V300 by Kingston which is based around the SF-2281 controller by SandForce Toshiba decided to use the latest controller by Marvell Technologies (C58NC5HA9GST) to equip their entire THNSNF line of SSDs. Now overall in the past Marvell would not had been my first choice when it came to performance since solutions such as the Intel 510 were not the fastest around with SandForce based solutions taking the lead in most tests. Well i have to admit that this is no longer the case since the latest controller by Marvell managed to surpass every single controller I’ve ever encountered on an SATA III SSD (not PCIex ones) in some of the tests performed in this review and i think that alone justifies the controller selection made by Toshiba for the THNSNF512GCSS (and the rest of the line). So without further delay let's move forward and see exactly what we're talking about.