CONCLUSION

   Toshiba’s market share makes it somewhat clear that they are not looking to take Seagate and WD head on (neither in sales nor in terms of performance) so if you’re looking for the fastest SATA III HDD money can buy the X300 desktop family (based on the performance of the 5TB model always) is not it. That’s not to say performance is bad since surpassing 200MB/s in both read and write is not a small feat for any mechanical drive but the X300 5TB just like the N300 6TB which we reviewed a while back are far from the fastest ones out there. Also when the X300 family was launched back in late 2016 it had but only three available capacities (4/5/6TB) thus lagging behind its competition (and their 8/10TB capacity models). Toshiba updated the line in 2017 to also include a higher density 8TB model but again with 12TB models already widely available by Seagate and WD it might have been too late.

   Just like with most products in this industry price is what can make or break the X300 family a fact which Toshiba has always been well aware of. Unfortunately although because of that they’ve followed a somewhat aggressive pricing policy the 5TB variant of the X300 family seems to be favored quite less compared to the 6TB one (at least on the other side of the Atlantic). To be more specific although as we speak the X300 5TB retails for USD154.74 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 139Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) the 6TB model retails for just USD164.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 170Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). With that out of the way it’s also worth pointing out that the lowest cost 5TB models by Seagate and WD cost roughly 20% more so if budget is an issue Toshiba has you covered. Overall the X300 5TB SATA III hard disk drive by Toshiba may not get the highest scores in terms of performance (and at 11.3W it’s far from the lowest consumption drive out there) but it offers very good endurance numbers (1.4 million hours) and is priced just right and thus is indeed worth our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (1.400.000 Hours MTBF)
- Very Good Read/Write Performance
- Features
- Low Temperatures
- 2 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Only Up To 8TB
- Reported Power Consumption At Load (11.3W)
- Noise Levels (Slightly Over The Competition)