Comparing: TOSHIBA MK3252GSX vs GeForce MX350 [Disk]

Specification Comparison Table

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Submission Comparison Table

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About Hardware TOSHIBA MK3252GSX

The TOSHIBA MK3252GSX is a chunky 2.5-inch hard disk with a 320GB capacity, specifically designed for use in laptops and other mobile devices. Using a SATA II (3.0 Gbps) interface and operating at a rotational speed of 5400 RPM, this HDD offers a balance between power efficiency and basic performance, making it an ideal solution for everyday use.

Equipped with 8MB of buffer cache, the drive is capable enough to handle common storage needs such as operating system files, work documents, music collections, and medium-resolution videos. Although it cannot match the speed of a solid-state drive (SSD), the TOSHIBA MK3252GSX remains an affordable alternative for users who prioritize storage capacity at a more economical price.

Physically, this hard disk generally uses two platters and four heads to read and write data, a standard configuration for a 320GB HDD. In synthetic testing, the read and sequential speed was 41.22 MB/s and the write speed was 38.74 MB/s, depending on system conditions and data fragmentation.

Despite the growing popularity of SSDs, the TOSHIBA MK3252GSX remains relevant as a backup storage solution or as a cost-effective upgrade for older laptops that still rely on mechanical storage media. Its ample capacity and power efficiency make it suitable for use in educational systems, netbooks or home computers with light to medium storage requirements.

Device Test:

Device: HP 1000 1b05au (HDD Caddy), IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6 (HDD Enclosure)
Specs: E1-1200, 4GB RAM, SATA-II, Win7 | i5-1135G7, 12GB RAM, USB 3.0

Tuesday, 03 November 2020 12:43:42 | Update: 1 month ago

About Hardware GeForce MX350 [Disk]

The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 is an entry-level GPU designed for thin and light laptops, delivering significant graphics performance improvements over the processor's built-in iGPU. The GPU is based on the Pascal architecture with 640 CUDA Cores, and features 2GB or 4GB of GDDR5 memory with 64-bit bus width. The MX350 is generally used for light graphics tasks such as photo editing, light video, and casual gaming, and provides GPU acceleration for CUDA-enabled creative applications.

But in this particular test, a portion of the video memory (VRAM) on the GeForce MX350 was configured as a VRAMDisk. The concept of a VRAMDisk is similar to a RAMDisk, but it uses the VRAM of the GPU as a super-fast storage medium. VRAMDisk allows the creation of temporary, high-speed drives that can be utilized for technical experiments, speed testing, or graphics caching in certain scenarios. Although its capacity is limited and volatile (data is lost on reboot), the high bandwidth and low latency of VRAM provide compelling performance in certain contexts.

The tests were conducted on a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6 laptop with Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, 12GB DDR4 3200MHz dual channel RAM, and Windows 11 22H2 operating system. The VRAMDisk was created from a 2GB GeForce MX350 GPU, with virtual disk sizes of 1GB and 1.5GB, using special software called GPU RAM Drive.

Benchmark results with CrystalDiskMark recorded read speeds of 1113.58 MB/s and write speeds of 995.48 MB/s, showing the high bandwidth potential of VRAM as a temporary storage medium. Although the performance does not match DDR4-based RAMDisks, VRAMDisks remain a unique and attractive solution for certain technical purposes, especially for users who want to utilize idle VRAM for fast I/O processes. With its dedicated laptop GPU form factor and PCIe x4 Gen 3.0 interface, the GeForce MX350 VRAMDisk opens up new exploration possibilities in the world of experimental graphics-based high-speed storage.

Device test (testbed):

Device: Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6
CPU: i5 1135G7
RAM: 12GB DDR4 3200MHz Dual Channel (8+4)
OS: Windows 11 22H2

Friday, 06 August 2021 04:34:19 | Update: 1 month ago