Do you anticipate QLC SSDs with enthusiasm or dread?

On one hand, it'll probably make 1TB SSDs very affordable. On the other hand, I can't imagine how horrendous performance and durability will be.

 

Probably not a lot different to the 600p. SLC cache for responsiveness and lots of cheap TLC for capacity.

People rag on the 600p but as a big M. 2 storage drive its fine. Only a couple of times I've written enough to fill the 32gb cache and have it slow to a 100mb/s write crawl. The smaller ones with less cache, or using it as an OS drive might be problematic

 

Yeah, needs a big cache, 32GB is probably more than adequate for most people.

 

QLC SSD's? An 1TB or larger 7200RPM HDD that is short-stroked and partitioned ideally is a better value/benefit/reliability proposition. At least for anything, not mobile...

If QLC drives are the only thing on the market; dread.

With anything better available; avoid at all costs (even if given free, to me).

Btw; there is no such thing as SLC cache in any semi-modern SSD... it is all 'pseudo SLC' - not quite the same thing.

The difference? Night and day in latency, sustained performance (even of just the 'SLC' part...) and reliability.

32GB cache is good for what, maybe a minute of use at advertised speeds? Yawn.

Don't let the marketing hype get you; buy a quality MLC SSD - or, just use Optane when that option is available for you/your platform.

I hope any manufacturer that offers QLC loses their shirt on them; hope the warehouses stop ordering (sooner, than later) and they need to give them away (because sales are ZERO) just to get their space back.

QLC isn't even good enough for the memory I use in my cameras (a pure 'storage' scenario)... it is nowhere close to being good enough for compute devices, imo.

Yeah, I may not use them in my platforms - but would these be worth buying for mom and pop for their facebook perusal? At $50 / TB, sure. Anything higher and what is promised vs. what will be delivered is a ripoff, pure and simple.

 

@tilleroftheearth MLC SSDs are too small, sadly. Market of high-capacity drives is dominated by TLC nowadays.

 

Yeah. We don't have a lot of choice any more. TLC and variants of it are where we're headed in general. But they are still vastly superior to any HDD out there.

 

@HTWingNut atrocities like 1TB planar TLC with 8GB pseudo-SLC cache (and even less on smaller models) which fall to sub-HDD speeds after running out of it are to be avoided regardless. These terrible rip-offs do not have any right to exist.

 

They drop below 120MB/sec? I have not seen that, but then again, I don't opt for those kinds of drives. I never like "cache" drives to begin with, unless it's a huge amount of cache. 64GB SLC or even MLC cache with a 1 or 2TB drive should be more than sufficient for most users.

 

@HTWingNut yes, they drop below 100MB/s. And this cache is pseudo-SLC, i.e. TLC cells is treated as if it's SLC with single bit per cell. Nobody puts actual SLC NAND in these drives, to my knowledge.

 

Nah... TLC sales dominate nowadays... but MLC is still highly preferred.

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9451/the-2tb-samsung-850-pro-evo-ssd-review

Just don't buy the TLC EVO model if sustained performance over time is your goal.

For pure capacity, I agree that TLC is still easier ($$$ issues aside...) to obtain.

See:
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E4T0B-AM/dp/B01G844OOO

But, at anything above 1TB, the capacity is enough to make almost any workflow 'work'. At 2TB, we're reaping better performance and increased capacity. Would 4TB be better? Yeah. But the sustained and peak performance, not to mention the longevity take a dive (nobody is concentrating on optimizing a controller for 4TB nand or higher).

Again; I agree to the truth of your statement, based on just 'sales'. But for anyone that needs the highest storage performance? MLC is still king.

 

No, they aren't 'cache' drives. These are full SSD's with a small amount of pseudo-SLC (TLC nand programmed differently...) that hit less than half of what a HDD is capable of today.

See:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2998...ng-problem-storage-makers-dont-advertise.html


Old(er) article; but the first one I found for you. ~74MB/s when it was previously doing ~400MB/s...

At 12GB pseudo-SLC cache - that 'performance' level was sustained for a mere 30 seconds or less... on the 960GB model.

I will point out once again that Anand had found (five years ago now?) that even with 128GB SSD's used as cache (in a fruity company's platform) it wasn't nearly enough.

Edit: found it.

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive/7

I'm pretty sure he did another (similar) article too - but I can't find that right now.

Optane Memory, gen 1, holds the most promise for a very small cache to power a larger/slower mechanical disk setup. Not only does it speed it up; it speeds it up above (pure/SATA3) SSD speeds too.

 

@tilleroftheearth my bad, 2TB 960 Pro m.2 is MLC, yet I was sure it is TLC for some reason.

 

I know Samsung do this but are you sure Intel are doing the same in the 600p?

Anyway, in my sample size of 1, low QD read performance is excellent, which is what I do every day, unlike >35Gb of sustained >500MB/s writes which I think I've done twice in months

 

@bennyg it would be technically unfeasible to use actual SLC NAND. Did you see a stray SLC die on any TLC drive? (=

 

Dunno, there's what looks like a thin heat spreader over the controller (which from the side looks like its one contiguous chip) and a big sticker over the other chips

If it has to be a separate chip then the answer to your question is no.

(that's it the underside of pcb is totally empty)

 

@bennyg

[source]

 

Whether a drive has dynamic or fixed 'slc' cache - they are both using pseudo-SLC nand...

Like I said before; only the programming is different (for that part of the nand).

Is it SLC nand? No. Just like the stickers on race cars don't make them go faster (the budget from them for the tires/engine do...)...

pseudo-SLC is a software option to make the most of the garbage TLC hardware for the unaware.

If this was real tech; MLC would benefit from it too.

 

I couldn't find anywhere on the Intel website or product page/brief where they mention SLC (or even the amount of cache), only 3D TLC. Yet ... magically ... every single review calls it a "SLC cache"... have they BSed the entire tech 'journalism' sector into lying for them with a misleading claim in a press pack?

 

No; the "entire tech 'journalism' sector" is BS'ing it's readers.

I read for comprehension... and that is based off what I've learned previously too.

Can't undo TLC 'magically' and create SLC. But you can market it like a fluffy white bunny that gives away chocolate easter eggs out of it's butt. (For those that want to blindly believe...).

 

I'm leaning towards this as well. Not the chocolate part, I don't want to think about eating chocolate from there.