INTRODUCTION

   With 18/20TB hard disk drives already being sampled by manufacturers 22TB models are naturally not that far behind so if projections are correct, we should see even 24TB models by the end of 2021. Still even though very high capacities are certainly very convenient to have it's important to remember what most consumers are looking for out there, and that's affordable models at much lower capacities. Now as many of you are already aware conventional HDDs have been using perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) or conventional magnetic recording (CMR) for many years now but due to physical limitations manufacturers turned towards shingled magnetic recording (SMR) for some of their models since it clearly offers improved areal density (and thus available capacity). The P300 line of HDDs by Toshiba is based both on the PMR/CMR and SMR technologies and today I’ll be testing the tri-platter 6TB model (HDWD260).

   Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH (TEE) is the European electronic components business of Toshiba Electronic Devices and Storage Corporation. TEE offers European consumers and businesses a wide variety of innovative hard disk drive (HDD) products plus semiconductor solutions for automotive, industrial, IoT, motion control, telecoms, networking, consumer and white goods applications. The company’s broad portfolio encompasses integrated wireless ICs, power semiconductors, microcontrollers, optical semiconductors, ASSPs and discrete devices ranging from diodes to logic ICs. TEE has headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany, with branch offices in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom providing sales, marketing, and engineering. Company president is Mr. Tomoaki Kumagai.

   The P300 line of 3.5" hard disk drives by Toshiba is currently available in 500GB/1TB/2TB/3TB/4TB/6TB capacities and as mentioned earlier uses both PMR/CMR and SMR technologies. To be more precise even though the 500GB/1TB/2TB/3TB models are based on the PMR/CMR technology and feature a rotational speed of 7200RPM (along with a 64MB buffer) the 4/6TB models are based on the SMR technology and their platters rotate at 5400RPM (buffer is set at 128MB). Of course, all models also come ready with features like NCQ (native command queuing), ramp loading technology (improves reliability), internal shock sensors and dual stage actuators (offer increased performance, data integrity and overall drive reliability - this actually only applies for the 2/3/4/6TB models). Finally, Toshiba reports an MTTF (mean time to failure) of 300.000 hours for the 500GB/1TB/2TB/3TB, 600.000 hours for the 4/6TB models and covers the entire P300 line with a 2 year limited warranty.