Has anyone received a Surface Book with a Toshiba SSD? When I ordered my Surface Book from the Microsoft online store, I tried to get them to ship me a Surface Book with the Toshiba SSD instead of the Samsung SSD, but the Microsoft guy had absolutely no clue that Microsoft was producing Surface Book units with different SSDs. So, it makes me wonder if Microsoft actually released Surface Books with the Toshiba drive for consumer purchase...
Samsung vs Toshiba SSD (now with poll)
- Thread starter flar
- Start date
Niterider4
Active Member
Releasing one version of the SB with a higher end SSD to send to reviewers, and then mass producing a different version for consumers to purchase, would be incredibly slimy and deceptive. It is essentially fraud. Shame on MS if that is really what they have done.
Just curious if anyone has received a SB with anything other than a Samsung MZFLV### drive inside.
Also, I mentioned earlier in this thread that I manually installed the Samsung NVMe storage controller driver and it helped with AS SSD benchmark results. Recently I decided to do a reset and reinstall and when I was back up and all updated I noticed that I have the Samsung NVMe drivers now. Is this now the standard storage controller driver on everyone's SB, or did that driver somehow survive my reset/reinstall?
For the record, I used Settings->Update & Security->Recovery->Reset this PC->Remove Everything->(the quick reformat option)
Also, I mentioned earlier in this thread that I manually installed the Samsung NVMe storage controller driver and it helped with AS SSD benchmark results. Recently I decided to do a reset and reinstall and when I was back up and all updated I noticed that I have the Samsung NVMe drivers now. Is this now the standard storage controller driver on everyone's SB, or did that driver somehow survive my reset/reinstall?
For the record, I used Settings->Update & Security->Recovery->Reset this PC->Remove Everything->(the quick reformat option)
To clear up some misconceptions: all NVMe drives (Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, etc.) had issues with AS SSD's benchmark, but it's just a quirk of NVMe and not indicative of real performance. That's not the major concern with the Samsung SSD.
The Samsung SSD just uses much worse NAND (TLC without TurboWrite or any other caching system); for example, the iPhone 6S, not to mention most 6TB 7200RPM hard drives, have sequential writes faster than the 128GB Samsung PM951 NVMe SSD.
I believe it was intended to be dual-sourced, but something fell through and there is no dual-sourcing on the Surface Book five months later. The Surface Pro 4, however, has a mix of Toshiba & Samsung, especially in the Canadian/Australian markets.
I never expect to see the Toshiba XG3 in any retail Surface Book. The only ones in existence and likely will ever be are all review models.
I wasn't trying to imply that this was "the major" problem with the SSDs in our SBs. To be clear, the Samsung driver does clear up the incompatibility with the AS SSD benchmark, upgrading its abysmal results to what is consistent with other benchmark programs. As far as I could see when I installed it experimentally, it didn't really have much affect beyond that.
I'm still curious, though, if other people are seeing it on their SB now, or if its presence on my SB in its current state is an odd artifact of the fact that I was once experimenting with that driver. I'd like to make sure my software is back to "stock" as much as possible to avoid any further issues with updates failing and causing more problems down the road. To be clear, when I go to Device Manager->Storage Controllers I see a Samsung NVMe controller with a driver version 1.4.7.16. Is that what others are seeing now on their SB?
I use Device Manager and look under Disk Drives. It should show your main drive and the model number of it. Most of us are finding Samsung MZFLVNNN where NNN is the size of the drive in gb.
For the record I just had my i7/16/512/dGPU SB replaced at the MS store and the new one came with a Samsung MZFLV512 as well.
For the record I just had my i7/16/512/dGPU SB replaced at the MS store and the new one came with a Samsung MZFLV512 as well.
The thread is a bit old, but I'd like to contribute.
User from Italy, no Surface Book is sold here. So I've to buy one imported from Germany on Amazon.it, so I can have 2 years of warranty as expected for european sold products.
Mine is i5, 256GB SSD, dGPU, 8GB. Shipped with Toshiba SSD.
Do I have to expect any failure?
User from Italy, no Surface Book is sold here. So I've to buy one imported from Germany on Amazon.it, so I can have 2 years of warranty as expected for european sold products.
Mine is i5, 256GB SSD, dGPU, 8GB. Shipped with Toshiba SSD.
Do I have to expect any failure?
