CONCLUSION

   Prior to Toshiba sending over their P300 6TB drive I had read quite a few “negative” articles about the new SMR drives (WD also makes SMR drives - i think Seagate too although i didn't look into that) from some of my colleagues so i honestly didn’t know exactly what to expect. Well, as you can all see clearly from the charts SMR indeed doesn’t offer the same performance levels as PMR/CMR (primarily when it comes to continuous writes) but both for backup purposes and even as a Windows or even a Client drive (any usage that doesn’t require continuous writes) the P300 6TB drive should “behave” properly. Still it is what it is and so there’s no denying that SMR based drives are clearly not nearly as fast as their PMR/CMR counterparts so if you need the fastest performance from an HDD to cover your needs and you care not about cost then the P300 line was clearly not made for you (in that case you really should check our X300 reviews).

   Due to severe availability issues inside the EU (probably because of the recent Covid19 outbreak) the P300 6TB SATA III HDD by Toshiba currently retails for 179.50Euros (Amazon.de), a price tag which is set even higher than that of the X300 6TB model. All things considered the P300 6TB hard disk drive really has the potential to be a great backup and/or client drive, still because of its current availability and price the X300 6TB model is clearly a much better overall choice.

PROS

- Build Quality (MTTF of 600.000 Hours)
- Overall Performance
- Features (RV Sensor / Internal Shock Detection / Error Recovery / Heat Prevention)
- Low Temperatures & Noise Levels
- 2 Year Limited Warranty

CONS

- Only Up To 6TB
- Continuous Write Performance
- Current Availability & Price