# Confused about Samsung SSD types...



## johnspack (Jul 6, 2019)

What did I just buy?  It says mlc but isn't it really tlc?








						SAMSUNG 860 EVO Series 2.5" 500GB SATA III Internal SSD - Newegg.com
					

Buy SAMSUNG 860 EVO Series 2.5" 500GB SATA III V-NAND 3-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-76E500B/AM with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.ca
				



I haven't really kept up on ssd tech....  I bought 2 of them...  one is for a friend.


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## TheMadDutchDude (Jul 6, 2019)

Link is dead.


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## johnspack (Jul 6, 2019)

Try it now.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 6, 2019)

Multi-level cell - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




TLC technically is MLC.  All TLC is MLC, but not all MLC is TLC...

Most of the time MLC is considered just to mean 2 bit cells, and TLC is 3 bit cells.  But Samsung's marketing team realizes that people think MLC means just 2 bit per cell, and therefor it is more desirable.  So they do the scummy thing of now calling TLC 3-bit MLC.


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## biffzinker (Jul 6, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> Link is dead.


Try this: https://www.newegg.ca/samsung-860-evo-series-500gb/p/N82E16820147674



johnspack said:


> Try it now.


Nope, still not working


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## johnspack (Jul 6, 2019)

So now I'm seeing 2bit mlc vs 3bit mlc...   now what's the difference in that?  The pro versions are 2 bit mlc.  Dam.
Oh well,  my buddy will be happy...  takes 5mins to boot his haswell box on an hd...  I'll be so happy to put an ssd
in that....


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## newtekie1 (Jul 6, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> Try this: https://www.newegg.ca/samsung-860-evo-series-500gb/p/N82E16820147674
> 
> 
> Nope, still not working



Turn off your ad-blocker.



johnspack said:


> So now I'm seeing 2bit mlc vs 3bit mlc...   now what's the difference in that?  The pro versions are 2 bit mlc.  Dam.
> Oh well,  my buddy will be happy...  takes 5mins to boot his haswell box on an hd...  I'll be so happy to put an ssd
> in that....



2-bit MLC = The MLC we are used to and expect
3-bit MLC = TLC


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## johnspack (Jul 7, 2019)

Is there any point in the pro series for a regular consumer over the 860s?








						SAMSUNG 860 Pro Series 2.5" 256GB SATA III V-NAND 2-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-76P256BW - Newegg.com
					

Buy SAMSUNG 860 Pro Series 2.5" 256GB SATA III V-NAND 2-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-76P256BW with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.ca
				




Dam,  so I should try to get a 2bit drive....  they are so expensive...
So I got burned...  2 tlc drives....  oh well at least they were cheap.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 7, 2019)

johnspack said:


> Is there any point in the pro series for a regular consumer over the 860s?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



For a normal consumer, QLC is fine...


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## biffzinker (Jul 7, 2019)

johnspack said:


> So now I'm seeing 2bit mlc vs 3bit mlc... now what's the difference in that? The pro versions are 2 bit mlc. Dam.





			
				UserBenchmark said:
			
		

> 3D V-NAND is the latest technology in the flash memory world. This is where *planar* NAND (single planes of NAND cells) are stacked vertically, giving the ‘V’ in V-NAND. Due to the change in vertical arrangement of cells these SSDs have better capacities at lower production costs, half the power requirements, twice the speed and ten times the longevity of planar NAND.


Genuine 2-bit MLC would still be planar NAND vs the stacked TLC hybrid being referred to as MLC.


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## Vario (Jul 7, 2019)

If you had an SSD before you can check to see its total writes, figure out how many years it took you to reach that number of writes, and then you can check the endurance specification for the SSD you just bought and get an idea of its lifespan.  Most non professional users do not need the endurance of TLC.


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## johnspack (Jul 7, 2019)

Yes in the end you are right.  Although one of my evo 850s is showing a lot of wear,  still running great.  Just wanted to make sure my buddy got a good ssd.
Guess I probably shouldn't question samsungs..  seeing as how I have 2 of them and an hd....


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## Mussels (Jul 7, 2019)

the samsung 860 is still a high quality drive, nothing to be burned about there, unless you could get a Pro model for the same or very similar price (as an owner of a 970 pro NVME drive, outside of very specific use cases i cant tell it apart from my sata SSD TLC based systems)


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## johnspack (Jul 7, 2019)

Heh,  yeah the pro is almost twice the price.  Wasn't sure if it made it that much faster or not!  I guess if it's not m2,  then it doesn't matter...  a samsung drive will pump regardless.
Think I'm just getting twitchy waiting for my 8 core 1680 cpu to arrive.  Waited so dam long for one.....


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## Mussels (Jul 7, 2019)

its not about faster - often the only real world difference is how long the writes can be sustained for

my intel 6000P NVME drive could write at 500MB/s, for all of 5 seconds before it choked and wrote at 15MB/s
and yet, it could read at high speeds all day long


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## johnspack (Jul 7, 2019)

Well,  for my VMs, I'm hoping the 860 can keep up.  I can probably fill it with vms in a few days.  I need high iops as well,  but I know a sata ssd isn't going to give
me a lot of that.


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## Gungar (Jul 8, 2019)

Mussels said:


> its not about faster - often the only real world difference is how long the writes can be sustained for
> 
> my intel 6000P NVME drive could write at 500MB/s, for all of 5 seconds before it choked and wrote at 15MB/s
> and yet, it could read at high speeds all day long



I have no idea why anyone would buy that crap


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## Vayra86 (Jul 8, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> For a normal consumer, QLC is fine...



You think? There is a noticeable performance drop and reliability isn't great, while the price/GB barely makes a worthwhile jump.

IMO, QLC is one step too far. I was never happy with dying HDDs either, even if they did 5 years or 7 years later...


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## Gungar (Jul 8, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> You think? There is a noticeable performance drop and reliability isn't great, while the price/GB barely makes a worthwhile jump.
> 
> IMO, QLC is one step too far. I was never happy with dying HDDs either, even if they did 5 years or 7 years later...



Well it may become interesting in 5/10 years like what happened with TLC, because i don't see this big companies invest in QLC if they weren't sure that it would become interesting vs TLC.


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## Vario (Jul 8, 2019)

1TB  Phison E12 based drives write at insane speeds, have an amazing endurance, and cost about the same as the QLC.   So I don't understand the market for the QLC Intel model.
Here is my E12, this drive sells for ~$97 at this time.






Specifications

Capacity: 1TB
Read Speed: 3,100 MBps
Write Speed: 1,900 MBps
Interface: PCIe Gen 3 x 4
Form Factor: M.2 2280
Architecture: 3D NAND Flash
Random Read 4K: 570,000 IOPS
Random Write 4K: 570,000 IOPS
Supported Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 8,10
Endurance: 1600 TBW


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## Mussels (Jul 8, 2019)

Gungar said:


> I have no idea why anyone would buy that crap



1TB drive for $180 when a 1TB samsung was over $500


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## Zareek (Jul 8, 2019)

johnspack said:


> Is there any point in the pro series for a regular consumer over the 860s?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There was no burning, these are excellent drives. The 860 EVO is a consumer grade drive so you have a smaller amount of times you can write to it, it is rated for 300TB worth. You can basically completely fill the drive everyday for almost two years straight. Considering most people write 30GB or less a day, I think you are good for 20 to 30 years.

You are a great friend for buying your buddy that drive. I wish I had friends that nice.


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## johnspack (Jul 8, 2019)

Heh,  not that quite good of a buddy....  I expect him to pay for it.  I had to charge it.  
But one of my 850 evos is 3.5yrs old and has a crapload of writes to it,  and still fast.
So these 860s with twice the wear level,  should last a dam long time.


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## R-T-B (Jul 9, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> Genuine 2-bit MLC would still be planar NAND vs the stacked TLC hybrid being referred to as MLC.



No.  Stacking/3D nand tech is just how the chips are arranged.  It has nothing to do with mlc vs tlc, qlc, etc.  That's the cell formating.

Performance wise mlc vs tlc has little difference on samsung drives.  It's mostly an endurance thing, and both drives still have insanely high endurance, so I would not worry.


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## biffzinker (Jul 9, 2019)

R-T-B said:


> It has nothing to do with mlc vs tlc, qlc, etc. That's the cell formating.


I understand that part but I thought the stacking of TLC made it behave similar to how planar MLC operates.


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## R-T-B (Jul 9, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> I understand that part but I thought the stacking of TLC made it behave similar to how planar MLC operates.



Nope.  If anything 3d NAND is more reliable because they use a larger proccess than what they'd have to use in planar due to the addition of a vertical plane.

EDIT:  Oh I see what you mean.  I don't know if they are similar in specs, but 3D TLC would certainly be closer to planar MLC than say, planar TLC.


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## johnspack (Jul 14, 2019)

My confusion came from the Samsung site calling it Samsung V-NAND 3bit MLC.  From the site:   https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/860evo/
Now I know it's just an 860 evo.  Why do they call it mlc when it's clearly tlc?
Most non-tech savvy people would not understand the difference between 2 bit and 3 bit.


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## Zareek (Jul 14, 2019)

johnspack said:


> My confusion came from the Samsung site calling it Samsung V-NAND 3bit MLC.  From the site:   https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/860evo/
> Now I know it's just an 860 evo.  Why do they call it mlc when it's clearly tlc?
> Most non-tech savvy people would not understand the difference between 2 bit and 3 bit.


They do that for exactly the reason you said, non-technical people don't understand the difference and it's marketing. The marketing departments job is to sell products to show their product in the best possible way. Most companies have no problem with expressing language in terms that make the product look a little better than it might be. 

TLC vs MLC really doesn't matter unless you are going to run it as a cache drive for a big RAID array that is writing Terabytes everyday. Realistically the drive will have no use by the time the TLC has worn out if you use it like a typical consumer or basic office user(30GB or so writes a day). We are talking like 20+ years of life in typical usage scenarios. Other board components are going to wear out before the TLC NAND does. There are a few fringe scenarios where the TLC performance will drop as compared to 2 bit MLC but again we are talking about filling up the drive or writing massive amounts of data in a short amount of time. If you are a professional video , audio or photo editor maybe MLC is a better choice but the bang for buck of TLC undeniable.


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