QLC Sata SSDs for storage

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9196/micron-5210-ion-enterprise-ssd-review/index.html

once these become cheap and available, probably ~$300-400, waiting begins..

 

theyre already available and cheaper than any 4TB SSD options (price per GB) including the QLC drives!

 

they go about $800 on ebay. donno if its worth it you could just do $100 more for 5100 which is TLC and has faster sustained sequential write, also higher endurance and higher 4k random.

 

oh yeah, preaching to the choir here man. look at the abysmal 700TB endurance rating at 4k random writes, and that for a 8TB class drive! nah man, super happy with my two 4TB 860 Evos, no worries about my data

 

these drives not really meant for lots of 4k random though. drive most likely targeted by data center for write once read lots type of workload. even then thats 4k random write at 700TB so best way to kill it would be torrent on it or using it as OS/cache drive.

sequential storage onto it is best

 

Like using it for game installs

 

700TB is not abysmal! Certainly not for consumer usage. Sure per TB it might be low, but 700TB is many times greater than most TLC SSDs.

 

There are 8th TLC and even MLC. Go for TLC if you can.

 

there is a reason why you should look at the write endurance in relation to the total drive capacity otherwise, we might just as well just set 100 TB to all drives and call it a day.

the bigger the drive, the bigger the amounts of data u will write to it. same goes with increasing performance: writes accumulate WAY faster on an NVME drive as compared to a SATA drive, trust me! speaking from experience here

 

I mean 700TB is a lot of data. My SLC caching drives on my server are under 52TB and they have over 35,000 hours of power on time, and everything that goes onto my storage drives goes there first (including my entire 4TB steam library and all of the daily updates). I would be surprised to see a typical user get anywhere near 700TB within the useful life of these drives.

 

"No one will need more than 637KB of memory for a personal computer. 640KB ought to be enough for anybody,"

but jokes aside, as i said before, its always about context. my previous 850 Pro 1TB was rated at 300 TB writes under warranty. so scaling that up to 7.68 TB would equal 2304 TB. and thats comparing it with a drive that came out in 2014, 5 years ago!

so yeah, i for one want to be confident about my data being safe and for that, QLC just doesn't cut it (yet).

 

You'll notice I said "useful life of these drives." You're not going to run these SSDs for 30 years. I'd love to see what your SSDs are at write wise vs ownership time, so we can figure out how fast you will hit that endurance mark...

I'm also the guy that purchased HUSSL4040ASS600 SSDs for their 35PB endurance, I wouldn't hesitate to buy QLC. And yes that equates to 350PB of endurance if you wanted to calculate that out with a 4TB size (and they are much older than your 850 pro)... And yes that's 358,400TB. The SLC guys say the same thing about your MLC drives that you say about QLC.

There are also plenty of tests that show that endurance ratings are really just guestimates (and often pessimistic) and there are plenty of examples of people pushing the drives way past that with tests...

 

doesnt really shock me when we talk about an SLC drive here, so no need to be so dramatic about it

of course the write endurances under warranty are on the low side, everyone knows that. thats not new information but no matter that, its an indicator of how much wear and tear such a drive can take before cells start giving out on you, no matter if its a guesstimate or not. fact still stands that some "theoretical" higher write endurance limit, which is an unknown, is not really a good assurance if i want to keep my data safe. once its gone, its gone, and no amount of "ifs" / "potential" write endurance or "more than enough" TB written in theory is gonna make up for that so all we have is the TB written amount that is under warranty. sure, that still doesnt protect you from potential drive failures, but at least u have a warranty to cover your hardware.

in any case, if youre a big fan of QLC by all means go ahead and purchase to your heart's content. heck, if you feel adventurous offer yourself up for alpha/beta testing upcoming PLC drives, see if i care haha

for my taste, QLC just isnt there yet, so lets see what the next several years will bring to the table...

 

Great, you've got your comfort level, and I've got mine. Still nothing on your end on how much data you actually use, so I'll still stick to my statement that most normal users will never approach the endurance limit of these drives within their useful lifespan.

 

lol, no matter what numbers ill list here it wont change the points i made in my previous posts, they will still be valid and from the looks of it, it also wont change your stance on things, so why even bother? and if you want to go ahead and use that against me, fine by me. some people just absolutely need to get in the last word, ive got other things to do ^^ haters gonna hate!

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

You're right, you've made some excellent points, like "haters gonna hate!" I appreciate the thought put into that post. Anyway, I hope you have a good night.

 

Anyone look into Samsung's QVO drive? Its more then some MLC drives at the same capacity

 

At less than 2TB size, you're technically correct.

Samsung does have the edge on actual real-world performance at 2TB and higher though.

The $30 or so price difference is more than worth it.

 

The sata format sure, though any big writing will give way to those mlc drives. Even then I would buy an intel 660p and get a sata adapter. Its only 2tb max each, but you can put two of those in one sata drive adapter for 4tb. I really dont know what samsung is doing with that, and even their evo's are not to far off in price even.

 

Crippling an M.2 PCIe x4 drive in a SATA III adaptor is not progress. Even at 4TB total capacity.

It may be a cheaper way to go when the QLC drive is on sale, but you're also getting substantially less performance too. And I'm not talking about high sequential speeds either...

 

very doubtful, unless you make comparisons to super old drives that have been on the market for a long time apples to apples!

u might be able to make up for that in part if u used a SATA adapter that supported RAID 0

 

There may be one that supports raid 0

Well if you go on newegg and sort drives over 1tb by order of cheapest, and check "MLC/EMLC/" then you will get results in the area of 100 to 150 for a mlc drive. They are probably older drives for sure, but cheaper beast none the less. Regardless, im not sure what samsung is doing with qvo in that regard...

 

"doing" in what way? in terms of pricing or durability ratings?

 

Nah, taking an ~1800MB/s + M.2 PCIe x4 drive and putting it into a max ~560MB/s connection makes zero sense.

RAID0 doesn't increase your Q1T1 speeds in any way at all either from a single drive. Many times, it makes it slightly worse too (depending on the drives used).

A PCIe x4 SSD in a SATA III adaptor (in RAID0 or not) is like buying an F14 and then proceed to drive it down the highway... using wood as your 'fuel'...

 

i think you're much better off buying a single 4 TB sata SSD than to waste money/time doing that. back when SSD storage were small, i gone through alot of time and money on it so i know, its the sacrifice to make wanting the best and biggest storage. nowaday an optane drive will just destroy any performance and a TLC 8TB SSD will just destroy any storage mod i can come up with. simple is best.

back when SSDs are like 32GB per drive it would make sense to go hardcore, no need for those anymore.

 

oh i never said that this would be a good idea hahaha

 

Not a good idea at all performance wise. But that 660p is the cheapest ssd in terms of price per TB in nvme, or was until this came down in price for sata format: https://www.newegg.com/micron-1100-series-2-tb/p/1Z4-00CB-00013 Good for sata lovers and its TLC, but only 2tb. Still, if you wanted 4tb in a single sata drive, then that adapter would be the cheapest route in nvme terms, and those 660p's go on sale often. I was under the impression that raiding them would give better low queue performance, but I think that was shown not to be the case with raid configurations.

Update: I cant find that enclosure that does 2 nvme drives in one.

Update: Well I take that back, Micron introduced the 5210 Ion drive that does everything I was saying for a sata drive, and its QLC, with better pricing then a QVO. I had disregarded it at first, but wasnt aware that the prices went down considerably.

https://www.amazon.com/Micron-MTFDDAK7T6QDE-7-68TB-2-5-Inch-Enterprise/dp/B07JQ2F2WG

https://www.newegg.com/p/2WA-0081-00019

 

nice find. that $800 is an attractive price for 7.68TB but damn that QLC turns me off.

google product brief for 5100/5200 TLC vs 5210 QLC:
http://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/671/5100_ssd-1283974.pdf
https://www.micron.com/-/media/clie...ct-flyer/5210_ion_ssd_product_brief.pdf?la=en

for pure storage you would want higher endurance and faster sequential. 5100 is like 2-2.5 yrs older than 5210 and caps at around 450-520MB/s write while the 5210 stuck at 350MB/s write. cant seem to swallow that kind of slow write even if its 8TB, minimum 450MB/s bro.

on the other hand 5200 is probably the best, cuts power almost to half from 5100, higher endurance, higher random at similar performance, a firmware champ for sure.

 

I can recommend to be on the lookout on fleabay for cheap 860 Evo drives in the 4TB capacity range. i got my two drives at 480 USD each, so 960 USD total for 8TB. that would equate to 920 USD for 7.68 TB, thus 15% more than the micron, but consider the 5 yr warranty, Samsung reliability, good write and IOPS performance and TLC instead of QLC.

 

What kind of life expectancy remaining is indicated for those drives?

Can't recommend buying storage products 'used', much less off of fleabay...

Even with a 99% remaining life indicator shown, the drive could die any second with your data on it.

(Yeah; warranty on storage devices is moot for me; I'd rather take a hammer/blow torch to the drive than let it leave my control after data is on it).

 

qlc right now is still new, low yields, buggy firmware so kinda risky to go into it even if value seems decent, best to wait another 1-2yrs to see some product refreshes with higher performance and endurance and watch price go down more.

i'd expect we see some 15TB QLC SATA drive before large SATA drive discontinue entirely, at maybe $1-1.2k per drive full on sequential ~450-500MB/s. in a yr or two from now. of course if theres a 8TB QLC NVMe m.2 SSD with standard 2280 form i'd take that instead but i worry about the sequential performance.

 

How about an 8TB eQLC NVME drive https://www.newegg.com/intel-d5-p4320-7-68tb/p/0D9-002V-005J5

Both micron and seagate are sporting 15tb drives in eTLC as well, so im not sure why there are not showing off 15TB QLC ones, or even 30TB drives.

https://www.newegg.com/seagate-nytro-3330-15-36tb/p/N82E16820248062
https://www.newegg.com/micron-9300-pro-series-15-36tb/p/N82E16820363104

 

they werent used, brand new in fact. all SMART values checked out, including the wear indicator.

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

well those are good and all but all U.2 form factor so they run on 12v, and you can't use them in laptop cause no 12v and height issue. i mean if you're going to use U.2 for 12.5 or 15mm, might as well go samsung's 32/64TB SSDs.

 

I am really curious why there is no U.2 interfaces in laptops. I mean its that or more NVME slots, and the potential of 15tb in a laptop vs 2tb nvme sticks seems like an obvious choice. My laptop can actually fit a 15mm drive believe it or not, though I would have to cut off a plastic piece keeping it from that, which wont harm anything if its removed. I plan on putting a 5tb regular HD in sometime soon.

 

cause they dont wanna make a laptop thats 2-3 inches thick even though thats what we want. we are in the minority.

wooosh https://www.ebay.com/itm/352811061855