Do they support gaming – Toshiba N300 vs X300? The last thing gamers and production artists want is lag – the N300 & X300 hard drives deliver 7200 RPM speed and up to 512 MB cache size for a responsive experience when loading games or large multimedia files. The drive features a 512MB buffer, can hit a data transfer rate of 281 MB/s, and is good for workloads up to 180 TB/year and an MTTF of 1,200,000 hours. Get more Toshiba N300 vs X300 comparison.
Pros & Cons – Toshiba N300 vs X300
Toshiba N300
Pros
- Great NAS features
- Reliable
- Very good speeds
- High capacity
- Reasonable price
Cons
- Overkill for non-NAS devices
- Not the fastest NAS drive
Toshiba X300
Pros:
- Excellent read and write speeds
- It’s relatively quiet
- It’s easy to install
Cons:
- It’s not the most reliable and there are issues with quality control
Specs – Toshiba N300 vs X300
Toshiba N300
- Form factor: 3.5-inch
- Interface: SATA 6.0 Gbit/s
- Capacities: 4TB, 6TB, 8TB
- Rotational speed: 7200 rpm
- Buffer size: 128MB
- Dimensions: 147 (L) x 101.85 (W) x 26.1 (H) mm
- Weight: 770 g max.
- Box content: 3.5-inch internal hard drive – N300 High-Reliability HardDrive
- Supported drive bays: up to 8
- RAID support
- Workloads: 180TB/year
Toshiba X300 12TB
- Capacity1: 12 TB
- Interface: SATA 6 Gbit/s
- Form factor5: 3.5 inch
- Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
- Cache size: 256 MB
- MTTF6: 600,000 hours
- Limited Warranty3: 2 years
Price – Toshiba N300 vs X300
The Toshiba N300 series comes in three high capacities: 4TB (the one we’ve reviewed here), 6TB and 8TB. The 4TB version costs £120 (around $160, AU$200), while the 6TB version will set you back £200 (around $260, AU$350), and the 8TB version costs £250 (around $320, AU$440). The X300 4TB cost $133 and 8TB version costs you around $320.
Who is this for – Toshiba N300 vs X300
One of the easiest ways to narrow down the search for a suitable hard drive is to look at the target market of each family. The table below lists the suggested target market for each hard drive family we are considering today.
| Drive Family | Target Markets |
| Seagate BarraCuda Pro | Desktops and All-in-Ones Home Servers Creative Professionals Workstations Entry-Level Direct-Attached-Storage (DAS) Units |
| Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS | NAS Units up to 24 bays (Creative Pros, SOHO, and Small to Medium Enterprises) |
| Seagate Exos Enterprise | Datacenter and Bulk Cloud Storage |
| Toshiba N300 | NAS Units up to 8 bays |
| Toshiba X300 | Professional Desktops, Home Media or Gaming PCs |
| WD Red | NAS Units up to 8 bays, Read-Intensive and Archival Workloads |
| WD Red Pro | NAS Units up to 24 bays |
After filtering out models that don’t apply to your use-case (as an example, for usage in a 4-bay NAS enclosure, one could rule out the Toshiba X300 straight away), we can then take a look at how the specifications of various drive families compare.
Compare Toshiba N300 vs X300
| Toshiba X300 4TB Performance & Gaming 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive | Toshiba N300 4TB NAS 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive | |
|---|---|---|
| Cache Memory Installed Size | 128.00 | 256 |
| Digital Storage Capacity | 4 TB | 4 TB |
| Hard Disk Rotational Speed | 7200 rpm | 7200 rpm |
| Hard Disk Size | 4 TB | 4 TB |
| Hard Disk Form Factor | 3.50 inches | 3.50 inches |
| Hardware Interface | SATA 6.0 Gb/s | SATA 6.0 Gb/s |
| Item Dimensions | 5.79 x 4 x 1.03 inches | 5.79 x 4 x 1.03 inches |
| Item Weight | 1.00 lbs | 1.53 lbs |
| Size | 4 TB | 4 TB |
What is the key difference – Toshiba N300 vs X300?
Design
Toshiba N300 has a standard 3.5-inch design which means it can easily be installed in PCs, servers and NAS devices, but not laptops. The high capacities are welcome, and its fast RPM means it delivers very good data transfer speeds.
The 12TB and 14TB models utilize a Helium-Sealed design to deliver increased storage density and lower operating power profile*. This helps maximize the storage capacity and improve the power efficiency of your gaming system*. The helium-filled X300 models run more efficiently than a standard air-filled model, delivering a smoother drive performance for a responsive game play.
Rotational speed
Despite throttling the speeds when temperatures get too hot, Toshiba is still bullish about the transfer rates the N300 can achieve, claiming speeds of 200MB/s. This is achieved thanks to a 128MB buffer, and a rotational speed of 7,200 RPM, which is faster than the speeds of many NAS-orientated hard drives, such as the WD Red, which spins at only 5,400 RPM.
The new 12 TB and 14 TB models operate at 7,200 rpm and come with an ultra-high 256MB data buffer. The N300 NAS and X300 models use Toshiba’s advanced Stable Platter Technology to minimize vibrations by stabilizing the motor shaft at both ends for improved tracking accuracy and maximum performance during read and write operations.
Read & write speed
With the Toshiba N300 4TB hard drive reaching sequential read speeds of 210MB/s, and write speeds of 209.2MB/s in the CrystalDiskMark benchmark test.
Meanwhile the IronWolf 10TB, another NAS-orientated hard drive, scored 250.2MB/s read and 229.2MB/s write, offering both faster speeds and larger capacities.
In comparison, the WD Rd 8TB scored read speeds of 185MB/s and write speeds of 185.4MB/s. That’s quite a difference, and mainly down to the faster spin speeds of the Toshiba N300.
What are the similarities – Toshiba N300 vs X300?
Cache
The Toshiba X300 and the Toshiba N300 have a 128MB cache (where data is temporarily stored during the data transfer). This is a fairly standard size for a 4TB hard drive and does increase to 256MB with the larger storage capacities.
Shock Sensors
With shock sensors and anti-vibration technology, any bumps or knocks to your computer when using the Toshiba X300 and the Toshiba N300 will be detected, and your data will be protected.
Alternate of Compare Toshiba N300 vs Seagate IronWolf
WD Gold 4TB Enterprise Class Hard Disk Drive
SPECIFICATIONS
- Interface: SATA 6Gbps
- Capacity: 4TB – 12TB
- Cache: 128MBRPM: 7200
Pros
+Excellent performance
+Smartly priced
Cons
-Support is not as robust as rivals’
If your business has a requirement to storage large files (or just lots of them), WD’s Gold series stretches all the way to a massive 12TB in size. And they boast some interesting traits: not least being filled with helium to protect tiny components inside that can be come damaged by atmospheric turbulence. Its on par with any of Seagate’s 12TB offerings when it comes to read and write performance and offers many of its rival drives’ features at no extra cost.
Western Digital Red NAS Hard Disk Drive
SPECIFICATIONS
- Interface: SATA 6Gbps
- Capacity: 1TB – 12TB
- Cache: 64BRPM: 5400
Pros
+Large capacity hard drive
+Performs better than rival 4TB models
Cons
-Average multi-drive small block sequential transfer speeds
It was only a few years ago that Western Digital’s 6TB NAS was the pack leader, offering more storage space than you could get from competing models. While that’s no longer the case, it’s still a unit with capacious storage space. Designed for both business and consumers, it offers fast performance especially in multi-drive environments where it boasts strong large-block sequential read and write speeds.
Editor’s recommendations
- Toshiba N300 vs WD Red comparison – where to buy at best price?
- Compare Toshiba N300 vs Seagate IronWolf – which is best NAS HDD?
- Samsung 870 QVO SATA III 2.5 SSD 4TB (MZ-77Q4T0B) review – is it good for gaming?
- SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro (525MB/s) CFast 2.0 memory card review
- Compare WD Red Plus vs Red Pro – when you should you it?
