Toshiba N300 8TB HDD Review

1. Introduction2. Toshiba N300 8TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. IOMETER7. Real Life File Testing8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

WD and Seagate have had NAS-ready hard drives in the market place for quite some time – WD with the Red and Red Pro series and Seagate with the NAS, IronWolf and IronWolf Pro drives so it will be interesting to see how much of an inroad into the market Toshiba can make with the N300.

The N300 8TB drive is a 6 platter (disc) design and six platters in a standard 3.5in enclosure is about as far as current hard drive technology will allow without the benefit of Helium technology. Because Helium has 1/7 the density of air it produces a lot less turbulence inside the drive housing, reducing disc resistance which in turn means less power to drive the discs and a reduction in heat production.

As Helium causes less disc flutter, the platters themselves can be made thinner, so more of them can be stacked inside the drive casing, leading to larger capacity drives.

Having lots of hard drives inside a single enclosure can lead to problems due to vibration and Toshiba have equipped the N300 with technologies to try and counteract any potential problems. Multiple sensors inside the drive monitor, detect and compensate for RV (Rotational Vibration) and other forms of shock that the drive might encounter. Toshiba's Stable Platter technology utilises a tied spindle motor to stabilise the motor drive shaft at both ends to protect against system-induced vibration, while Toshiba’s Ramp Load technology reduces disk head wear and tear.

Toshiba quote a sustained transfer rate for the 8TB N300 at 240MB/s, something we were able to confirm with the ATTO benchmark, the reviewed disk producing figures of 246MB/s for reads and 244MB/s for writes.

The official power figures for the 8TB N300 are 9.2W typical when in operation, less power than both the 4TB and 6TB models and 6.2W when in active idle, which is better than the 6TB drive (6.7W typical) but not as frugal as the 4TB drive (5.2W) typical.

We found the Toshiba N300 8TB for sale on LambdaTek for £282.53 (inc VAT) HERE

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Pros

• Fast performance.
• Technologies to aid reliability in a NAS environment.

Cons

• Not as energy efficient as some of its 8TB competitors.

Kitguru says: Toshiba's N300 might be a late arrival into the NAS drive market but it's a fast performing drive packed with features to help it survive in a multi-disk environment.

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