During our most intensive tests the OCZ SSD utility put up several alerts that thermal throttling had been engaged due to the drive's temperature. Like the Samsung 950 Pro, the RD400 strikes a precarious balance of performance against temperature. Overall the high power consumption in the small M.2 package also makes heat a somewhat greater concern. The higher power consumption is likely due to a combination of a less efficient controller and NAND that needs more power, but we don't have enough information to pin down the primary cause. Our testing showed it to be significantly more power-hungry than the Samsung 950 Pro, which suggests it may be less suitable for laptop use. The RD400 does have some downsides other than not being the absolute fastest drive on the market. I suspect most consumers would be better served with a larger SSD of moderate performance than a cramped but blazing fast PCIe drive, but for those who have the means and a need, the RD400 is a flagship halo product that unquestionably satisfies its purpose. Upgrading from a mechanical hard drive to a SSD alleviates a major performance bottleneck but the experience of moving from SATA SSDs to PCIe SSDs is not as revolutionary. PCIe SSDs are not yet mainstream products and are not a good value for consumers who aren't very sure that they will benefit noticeably from faster storage. But increased SSD performance brings diminishing returns for real-world use. At first glance, it may seem straightforward that a drive with two to three times the performance on most benchmarks is a good deal for a mere 30-50% price increase. On the other hand, comparing the RD400 against SATA SSDs is tricky. The 128GB RD400 on the other hand is smaller than any 950 Pro and thus competes mainly against grey market OEM Samsung SM951s that don't come with the nice 5-year warranty that Toshiba offers. Looking outside the direct Samsung comparisons, the 1TB RD400 provides a capacity that Samsung doesn't yet offer, but it comes at a premium and the increased capacity doesn't provide much of a performance increase over the 512GB model. Against the Samsung 950 Pro, the RD400 of the same capacity is usually slower, but the difference would be hard to feel during interactive use. The once formidable Intel SSD 750 can now only top the charts on one benchmark and is simply too expensive for today's market, but it does retain the distinction of being the sole 2.5" U.2 SSD for the consumer market. The RD400 only sets a few performance records but elsewhere it at stays close to the PCIe SSD competition and is much faster than any SATA drive. With the current state of the market, being a "mid-range" PCIe SSD can still mean being the second fastest drive available. The suggested retail prices aren't quite top of the line, which signals that performance expectations should be a bit lower than "the fastest that money can buy" but it needs to be in the ballpark. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 is aimed at the very top segment of the consumer SSD market where the primary goal is to get the highest possible performance.
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