Toshiba BG4 SSD Review: Mini But Mighty NVMe Storage

Name: Toshiba BG4 SSD
Brand: Toshiba

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 12:45 PM EDT

We like PCMark's Storage 2.0 benchmark module for its real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark offers a trace-based measurement of system response times under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system operation. From simple application start-up performance, to data streaming from a drive in a game engine, and video and photo editing with Adobe applications, we are comfortable that these tests reasonably illustrate the performance profile of SSDs in an end-user / consumer PC usage model, more so than a purely synthetic transfer test.

Futuremark's PCMark Storage 2.0

http://www.futuremark.com

The trace-based PCMark tests show the Toshiba BG4 in a very favorable light. Although the deltas separating the drives are quite small here, the BG4 pulls off a second place finish in terms of bandwidth and the overall score. Although the DRAM-less, single-chip design is not conducive to leading-edge performance across the board, Toshiba has obviously tuned the drive for common consumer workloads, as evidenced by its 4K low queue depth performance and its performance here.

Tags: SSD, NAND, Toshiba, nvme, bics, m.2, bg4

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com