Toshiba XG6 NVMe SSD Review: BiCS Flash Puts Up 3GB/Sec Performance

Name: Toshiba XG6 Client NVMe SSD
Brand: Toshiba

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, August 29, 2018, 09:00 AM EDT

Performance Summary: The Toshiba XG6 SSD was a strong performer throughout our testing and even managed to score a couple of impressive victories against some of the competing drives we threw into the mix. Sequential transfers never led the pack, but the XG6 remained competitive with the Samsung SSD 970 EVO and WD Black. 4K transfers, whether at low or high queue depths weren’t class-leading either, but were competitive nonetheless. And the same can be said about latency, though the XG6 was markedly faster than the XG5 it supplants in Toshiba’s line-up. Where the XG6 did particularly well, however, was with the trace-based PCMark application tests. Here the drive led the pack across the board, not only in terms of its overall score, but in the individual load times, and bandwidth as well. This bodes well for performance expectations with the XG6 in mainstream consumer client workloads.

Toshiba XG6 NMVe SSD - Find Them At Amazon

The XG6 is yet another strong M.2 NVMe solid state drive to come out of Toshiba. This is the first of Toshiba’s solid state drives to leverage 96-Layer BiCS FLASH 3D Flash memory, which offers power, endurance, and performance benefits over previous-generation drives. Looking back through all of the numbers, its performance is competitive across the board as well.

We need to reiterate, however, that Toshiba XG6 drives are not destined for the retail channel, but rather are targeted at OEMs and system builders. We don't have official pricing we can share either, but Toshiba's XG5 has trickled into some online retailers and can be found for roughly $.49 per GB (give or take a few cents). We suspect the XG6 will land in a similar pricing segment, and shouldn't result in any hefty premiums being tacked on to the systems the feature the drive. Should you be in the market for a new desktop or notebook and the Toshiba XG6 is an option, we recommend giving it some serious consideration – this is a very nice SSD.


Strong Overall Performance Class Leading PCMark Results	OEM Product, Retail Versions May Be Coming Pricing TBD

Tags: SSD, Storage, Toshiba, nvme, bics, xg6

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