# Would you still choose an MLC drive today versus 3DTLC?



## tripleclicker (Apr 26, 2019)

Hi, I've been a long time lurker and reader here on TPU. This is my first post.

Given the price drop of today's SSDs, would you still choose an MLC drive over a 3D TLC drive?

Here in my country I could get a WD SN750 at slightly less price than a Plextor M8PeG. I know the SN750 is better in performance, but would the planar MLC in the Plextor be better for-- I dunno, longevity? Reliability?


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## londiste (Apr 26, 2019)

Not unless endurance is something you specifically need.
3D TLC cleverly uses vertical space to aid in endurance. It is not quite up to MLC level but much closer than initial planar TLC used to be.

In this case, SN750 is also a couple years newer drive and has better performance. I would go for that in a heartbeat.


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## Gungar (Apr 26, 2019)

I would definitely not buy anything not 3D anymore, unless its MLC with a really good discount.


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## W1zzard (Apr 26, 2019)

The only use case I can see is that when you write A LOT of data (ie 50 GB+ in one go), and write performance of the MLC drive is significantly better than the TLC drive after its SLC cache is exhausted.

But not a lot of reviewers test for that, I do, but I haven't reviewed either of those SSDs

Have you considered the ADATA SX 8200 Pro?


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 26, 2019)

tripleclicker said:


> but would the planar MLC in the Plextor be better for-- I dunno, longevity? Reliability?


This depends on your usage model. If you're going to buy a large enough SSD with the intent to use it for many years(more than 3), than yes MLC will be much better. If you intend to replace the drive within 3 years, 3DTLC is a good buy.


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## tripleclicker (Apr 26, 2019)

Hmm, I see. I will look into the adata also. Thanks for your responses.


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## bonehead123 (Apr 26, 2019)

tripleclicker said:


> Here in my country I could get a WD SN750 at slightly less price than a Plextor M8PeG. I know the SN750 is better in performance, but would the planar MLC in the Plextor be better for-- I dunno, longevity? Reliability?



If you're not in a hurry to get a drive, I have a SN750 coming real soon, and I can let you know next week how it performs compared to my other drives ... 2x sammy 960 evo pro's and 1x ADATA 

I'm sticking with TLC for a while yet, cause I don't do a lot of big writes, and I tend to get new drives every other year or so when new ones come out, then shift the older ones to one of my back up rigs


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## delshay (Apr 26, 2019)

Well they say you should never completely fill up SSD or you will shorten it's lifespan. The more unused space the better. This is why I have large SSD (2TB) that I will never be able to fill up in my main computer.

My Laptop has 512GB SSD & shows 23.0TB written over four years.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 26, 2019)

Sn750 beats the old plextor hands down and the price difference is justifiable,but only if you can use it.for a regular home user or gamer there's hardly any difference between sata and nvme ssds in the first place.
New 3d tlc drives have very fast and durable 64/96 layer nand,better controller and better caching than old ones,there's no point in buying a mlc drive over 3d tlc one,the latter may be better anyway.
For home/gaming I advise you to get a big sata ssd like mx500,su800 or 860 evo.
If you want a nvme for a home/gaming rig look no further than a 8200pro or ex920,or even a cheap drive like 6000lite or 660p though I wouldn't buy them in smaller capacity than 1tb.
Drives like 970evo and sn750 are for content creators and video editors imo,you'll only see the difference when moving lots of data and transferring big files.


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## londiste (Apr 26, 2019)

Specs have endurance listed for SSDs:

*Plextor M8PeG:*
- 192TBW for 128GB
- 384TBW for 256GB
- 768TBW for 512GB/1TB

*WD SN750:*
- 200TBW for 250GB
- 300TBW for 500GB
- 600TBW for 1TB
- 1200TBW for 2TB

The difference is about 2 times more endurance for MLC at the same size. However, all of these numbers are very much fine for any normal usage.
Note that these do not necessarily reflect the actual technical capability of the SSD/Flash involved but is a endurance level manufacturer is sure enough about guaranteeing.

Outside this, every other spec point shows WD SN750 is better which is not suprising considering WD drive is new and Plextor drive is from couple years ago.


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## Zareek (Apr 26, 2019)

I agree with everyone else here unless you need to write massive amounts of data on a regular basis a 3D TLC drive is the way to go. I think most people do a lot less writes than they think they do. My C drive is at least two years old and it has 19.1TB written to it. Granted that is because I have another drive with my game library and yet another drive with music, video and software archives. My point is you most likely won't own the MLC drive long enough to need the added endurance.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 26, 2019)

Don't pay attention to tbw,960evo could take over 6pb in the endurance test despite using 3d tlc while some mlc drives died at 2pb or less.
As long as the drive is using toshibas,microns or samsungs 3d tlc it's gonna take as much as good mlc


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## TheLostSwede (Apr 26, 2019)

tripleclicker said:


> Hi, I've been a long time lurker and reader here on TPU. This is my first post.
> 
> Given the price drop of today's SSDs, would you still choose an MLC drive over a 3D TLC drive?
> 
> Here in my country I could get a WD SN750 at slightly less price than a Plextor M8PeG. I know the SN750 is better in performance, but would the planar MLC in the Plextor be better for-- I dunno, longevity? Reliability?



Well, I recently upgraded my Plextor M8Peg to a WD Black, but not the SN750, but the one just before that one, although with very similar performance.
It's a huge performance difference in synthetic benchmarks, but not in real world usage. Windows boots 1 second faster and Photoshop responds a bit bit quicker when working with large files, but that's about it in terms of what I can notice.

The reason I upgraded was because I went from 512GB to 1TB.

That said, the Plextor drive gets very hot and throttles easily when hot, whereas the WD drive isn't showing any throttling issues, so that's a big plus if you copy large files to/from the SSD at times.

I'm not overy concerned about the life span, as 3D TLC seems to be pretty solid by now and I don't write huge amounts of data to the drive, as I store most things on my NAS.

Performance figures below.


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## tripleclicker (Apr 26, 2019)

Ah, thanks for the numbers. I might go for the SN750 or sx8200 pro then, although the cheapest I can see here is the VPN100.

Again, thanks to all who replied.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 26, 2019)

tripleclicker said:


> Ah, thanks for the numbers. I might go for the SN750 or sx8200 pro then, although the cheapest I can see here is the VPN100.
> 
> Again, thanks to all who replied.


vpn is a very good drive for the price.



lexluthermiester said:


> This depends on your usage model. If you're going to buy a large enough SSD with the intent to use it for many years(more than 3), than yes MLC will be much better.* If you intend to replace the drive within 3 years, 3DTLC is a good buy*.


this is BS
do you have evidence of 3dtlc drives dying after 3 years ?
please stay away with advice like that.
how would you,as an example,assess the longevity of a 15nm 2d mlc drive vs a 40nm 3d tlc one ?


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## Vario (Apr 26, 2019)

I bought a MLC drive last month (Samsung 970 Pro 512MB) for my OS for $130 and this week bought a 3D TLC Samsung PM981 1TB for my data for $100.  Prices are going down on the top end if you are good at eBay.  Even the retail priced budget drives couldn't beat those prices for the most part.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 26, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> do you have evidence of 3dtlc drives dying after 3 years ?


Yes actually. I have replaced a few TLC based drives for SMART warnings and failures. Have yet to replace any of the SLC or MLC drives I've sold, and I've been selling SSD's for a little over a decade.


cucker tarlson said:


> how would you,as an example,assess the longevity of a 15nm 2d mlc drive vs a 40nm 3d tlc one ?


Manufacturer stated specifications. Most manufacturers have rated TLC at between 900 to 1200 WEC per cell before failure whereas MLC is often rated at 4000+ WEC per cell before failure. I call that significant.


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## evolucion8 (Apr 26, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> Yes actually. I have replaced a few TLC based drives for SMART warnings and failures. Have yet to replace any of the SLC or MLC drives I've sold, and I've been selling SSD's for a little over a decade.
> 
> Manufacturer stated specifications. Most manufacturers have rated TLC at between 900 to 1200 WEC per cell before failure whereas MLC is often rated at 4000+ WEC per cell before failure. I call that significant.



According to my understanding, 3D TLC NAND is rated around 3,000 PE cycles while MLC around 5,000. QLC was originally rated for 500 PE but thanks to 3D, is around 1,500. Still not very fond of it, I'd still prefer MLC but 3D flash is at least making it a decent choice.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 26, 2019)

evolucion8 said:


> 3D TLC NAND is rated around 3,000 PE cycles


That would indeed be a massive improvement. I'm a bit dubious on that number.


evolucion8 said:


> Still not very fond of it, I'd still prefer MLC


Agreed and MLC drives are just not that much more expensive.


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## GLD (Apr 26, 2019)

I am not a tech guru like most here, but I suggest the Crucial P1 1TB NVMe at $130 with it's 5 year warranty. Make sure you download the Crucial Storage Executive tool and enable it's "Momentum Cache"... and hold on to your hat!

I have a EKWB heatsink on mine and it out performs the Plextor M9Pe 512GB NVMe  with heatsink I had, in CrystalDiskMark6.

Edit: Screens done with a RYZEN 2400G, ssd just below 50% full. Lowest score is with a 2014 era SSHD. Medium is with the Crucial P1 without Storage Executive. High score is the Crucial P1 with Momentum Cache enabled.


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## Vario (Apr 26, 2019)

GLD said:


> t I suggest the Crucial P1 1TB NVMe at $130 with it's 5 year warranty. Make sure you download the Crucial Storage Executive tool and enable it's "Momentum Cache"... and hold on to your hat!


Those are fine until they start to fill up, then they get much slower.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 27, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> Yes actually. I have replaced a few TLC based drives for SMART warnings and failures. Have yet to replace any of the SLC or MLC drives I've sold, and I've been selling SSD's for a little over a decade.


what drives were they?



lexluthermiester said:


> That would indeed be a massive improvement. I'm a bit dubious on that number.
> 
> Agreed and MLC drives are just not that much more expensive.


you're pretty much years behind with your knowledge.
today's standard is 64-layer 3d tlc,with error correction and even value-oriented drives are using vast amounts of free space as cache to write one bit per cell as long as its free.you're still praising mlc as if this was pre 2015.in those days they were using planar tlc that indeed was very poor,and some manufacturers still do for entry level drives.the OP asks about m8pe.I never saw torture test numbers for this particular drive,but I saw them for goodram ultimate that uses the same 15nm mlc from toshiba.While it could take more than twice as much as planar tlc drives,it's still something that modern 3d tlc drives can match or beat,not to mention the really good ones like 960 evo that wrote 6pb to tlc before dying.Picking a 2d mlc drive from 2016 in favor of a modern 2019 one with 3d tlc jsut cause "mlc is better than tlc" is silly,telling them it's a bad idea cause the drive can die after 3 years is just not true.The op mentions sn750,not one of the crappy tlc drives you put in your customer's rigs.It's both faster and more durable than the old ass m8pe.
but things changed and it is quite telling that a brand like samsung that never cut corners on ssds releases 3d tlc based 970 evo plus as their flagship and it beats 970 pro.
current 3d tlc drives have more endurance than a home user will ever need.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 27, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> you're pretty much years behind with your knowledge.


Opinion.


cucker tarlson said:


> today's standard is 64-layer 3d tlc,with error correction and even value-oriented drives are using vast amounts of free space as cache to write one bit per cell as long as its free.


That has no relevance to cell durability.


cucker tarlson said:


> you're still praising mlc as if this was pre 2015.


No I'm promoting MLC because as much progress has been made for TLC and 3DTLC, progress and advancements have been made for MLC as well. MLC is still the most durable consumer class NAND available. It's also faster. SLC based drives are not generally available anymore, however if they were they would be the best full stop.


cucker tarlson said:


> current 3d tlc drives have more endurance than a home user will ever need.


Also an opinion.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 27, 2019)

using 3d layered design has no relevance to durability ?
oh yeah.what else?

still you have the question to answer,what were those tlc drives that died after 3 years?



lexluthermiester said:


> Opinion.
> 
> That has no relevance to cell durability.
> 
> ...



you're promoting a drive that uses 2d mlc for god's sake!
choosing m8pe over sn750 is dumb.it's something a novice would do after googling tlc vs mlc,but when it comes from a person with experience it's just dumb.don't know how to spell it clreaer so that you can understand it.please don't confuse the OP with your "promoting".


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 27, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> you're promoting a drive that uses 2d mlc for god's sake!


It's faster and more durable than any TLC based drive and not much more expensive. What was your point again?


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## evolucion8 (Apr 29, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> That would indeed be a massive improvement. I'm a bit dubious on that number.
> 
> Agreed and MLC drives are just not that much more expensive.



You can find the 3D TLC PEs cycles around the web. What I like from MLC, is that it keeps its consistency after several writes, TLC slow downs to a crawl after running out of SLC/DRAM cache.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 29, 2019)

3D TLC is in a good place for a consumer drive 'and then some'. MLC is just for a specific use case in its current state vs the alternatives. I'm glad we see this kind of progress, SSD pricing has come a long way, and in the end, for storage, that is a very important factor. Performance only goes so far as the rest of your rig and use case and its in that same good place for 3D TLC.


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