Tuesday, April 30th 2024
Enthusiast Transforms QLC SSD Into SLC With Drastic Endurance and Performance Increase
A few months ago, we covered proof of overclocking an off-the-shelf 2.5-inch SATA III NAND Flash SSD thanks to Gabriel Ferraz, Computer Engineer and TechPowerUp's SSD database maintainer. Now, he is back with another equally interesting project of modifying a Quad-Level Cell (QLC) SATA III SSD into a Single-Level Cell (SLC) SATA III SSD. Using the Crucial BX500 512 GB SSD, he aimed at transforming the QLC drive into a more endurant and higher-performance SLC. Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 powers the drive of choice with a single-core ARC 32-bit CPU clocked at 550 MHz and two channels running at 800 MT/s (400 MHz) without a DRAM cache. This particular SSD uses four NAND Flash dies from Micron with NY240 part numbers. Two dies are controlled per channel. These NAND Flash dies were designed to operate at 1,600 MT/s (800 MHz) but are limited to only 525 MT/s in this drive in the real world.
The average endurance of these dies is 1,500 P/E cycles in NANDs FortisFlash and about 900 P/E cycles in Mediagrade. Transforming the same drive in the pSLC is bumping those numbers to 100,000 and 60,000, respectively. However, getting that to work is the tricky part. To achieve this, you have to download MPtools for the Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 controller from the USBdev.ru website and find the correct die used in the SSD. Then, the software is modified carefully, and a case-sensitive configuration file is modified to allow for SLC mode, which forces the die to run as a SLC NAND Flash die. Finally, firmware folder must be reached and files need to be moved arround in a way seen in the video.
As the drive powers on, capacity decreases from 512 GB to 114-120 GB. However, the SSD endurance jumps to 4000 TBW (write cycles), which is about a 3000% increase. Additionally, performance increased as well, which you can check out below, and in the original video for more details.
Check out the video for more details.
The average endurance of these dies is 1,500 P/E cycles in NANDs FortisFlash and about 900 P/E cycles in Mediagrade. Transforming the same drive in the pSLC is bumping those numbers to 100,000 and 60,000, respectively. However, getting that to work is the tricky part. To achieve this, you have to download MPtools for the Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 controller from the USBdev.ru website and find the correct die used in the SSD. Then, the software is modified carefully, and a case-sensitive configuration file is modified to allow for SLC mode, which forces the die to run as a SLC NAND Flash die. Finally, firmware folder must be reached and files need to be moved arround in a way seen in the video.
76 Comments on Enthusiast Transforms QLC SSD Into SLC With Drastic Endurance and Performance Increase
NVMe are a totally different way to do it. I`m still finding a wayThe MPTools by default doesnt allow to change the pSLC Cache size but i know how to. I will do a video showing different SLC Cache sizes and their respective performance alongside testing Static only x dynamic only x hybriddoesnt work like that, as soon as the SSD fill up it will drop speeds
I leave 3/4 unformatted.
Switching between SLC and TLC | TechPowerUp Forums
"Recent advances in Micron NAND technology enable the SSD firmware to achieve acceleration through on-the-fly mode switching between SLC and TLC modes to create a high-speed SLC pool that changes in size and location with usage conditions."
So I keep my TLC drive less than 1/3rd full
The firmware is designed to have as much pSLC as possible as unallocated so its ready to be used for new writes.
Otherwise, mightaswell buy a P1600X.
Which, is seemingly do-able.
A 512GB QLC in forced pSLC mode would be ~128GB. Seen those for $60 or less, regularly.
*But, the performance and endurance probably won't be competitive with pSLC-configured QLC.
The point (I'm seeing) with this mod is to to create a durable and fast 1/4-capacity drive, out of inexpensive large capacity QLC drives. (For boot, cache, slog, etc.).
If you pSLC-modded a TLC drive, you'd be looking at 1/3'd storage still (v. 1/4 for QLC) but, the original purchase price would be higher.
-a 2TB QLC drive can be had for 'around' $100 USD.
pSLC modded, you'd have a ~512GB pSLC SSD.
~$0.195/GB
-a 2TB TLC drive (unless used) is between $140-200+.
pSLC modded, you'd have a ~666GB pSLC SSD.
$0.21-0.30+/GB
Unmodded TLC vs. pSLC-modded QLC:
The QLC->pSLC will be faster and have considerably more write endurance than the TLC drive.
pSLC-modded TLC vs. pSLC-modded QLC:
The modified QLC drive will cost less per GB.
In this W1zzard test
Acer Predator GM7000 4 TB Review - SLC Cache & Write Intensive Usage | TechPowerUp
The speed drops at almost exactly 1/3rd capacity
"Once the the SLC cache is full, the drive will start flushing SLC back to TLC, which affects write rates."
But using the whole space for SLC before moving is not true for all drives.
I can think of at least one downside of a large SLC cache: if you do a full rewrite, the drive will inevitably spend more time moving the cache contents to TLC/QLC cells. As a result, it will achieve lower average write speed. Look at TPU tests, also those newer than that of Acer GM7000. None of the SSDs are among the best in both categories, SLC cache size and sustained writes.
But this shouldn't affect people often. If you're doing full (or nearly full) rewrites routinely, you're doing something wrong, and probably need larger SSDs or HDDs.
I know it depends on the drive/firmware, so maybe I ask too much.
Anyhow, this is one sweet project.
I know that the endurance goes up by about 66.7, but the capacity drops by 1/4, so I'd argue 17 times the life.