# Small SLC SSD boot drive



## Shrek (Jun 5, 2022)

Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives

SLC (single level)
MLC (dual level)
TLC (tri level)
QLC (quad level)
PLC (five level)
are there any small SLC SSD drives that might be suited for booting and so could take the stress of memory paging? I am guessing 64-128GB


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## Voluman (Jun 5, 2022)

I don't have experience with qlc/plc, but for a normal daily usage you are good to go with any kind/form of ssd.
If you plan to write the drive fully, on daily basis than probably stick with slc with big spare area, but other than this you should no worries.


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## Shrek (Jun 5, 2022)

Any recommendations for a smallish SLC SSD?


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 5, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives
> 
> SLC (single level)
> MLC (dual level)
> ...


256 is lowest I would go today


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## Shrek (Jun 5, 2022)

My intent was just the OS; the other files would go on a 2TB hard drive.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Jun 5, 2022)

Most modern drives operate in psudo SLC mode by disabling 2 or 3 of the layers in order to achieve near SLC performance for a limited duration.

Considering this plus the difference between the boot time of a SATA ssd and high end nvme is negligible, I don't think you should bother.


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## Shrek (Jun 5, 2022)

It is wear that concerns me, not speed or cost.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 5, 2022)

Shrek said:


> My intent was just the OS; the other files would go on a 2TB hard drive.



Thats what I use for the OS only. I use the velocitaptor for everything else.

Check my Sig Rig. It's big enough for future OS upgrades/service packs

840 Pro


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## Wirko (Jun 5, 2022)

If you're worried about write endurance, which you need not be, the datacenter Optane may be the one for you.


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## Frick (Jun 5, 2022)

Shrek said:


> It is wear that concerns me, not speed or cost.



What do you do with the computer?


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## Shrek (Jun 5, 2022)

Email, Web surfing, games, TeX, CAD, Mathematica.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Jun 5, 2022)

Unless you are chia mining, endurance is not going to get an issue for 99.9% of desktop users. Consider a Samsung "pro" drive if you want maximum reliability.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 5, 2022)

Shrek said:


> It is wear that concerns me, not speed or cost.


A TLC drive will not wear out in the life of the computer you put it in.


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## Nike_486DX (Jun 5, 2022)

optane can be considered as slc (technically its got different type of memory, but longevty-wise its ~ slc), currently using 32gig as os drive.



newtekie1 said:


> A TLC drive will not wear out in the life of the computer you put it in.


i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.


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## MIRTAZAPINE (Jun 5, 2022)

I guess your solution is to find an ssd with high TBW like samsung. Generally most decent m2 ssd have TBW pass the 1000tbw range nowadays.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 5, 2022)

Nike_486DX said:


> i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.


Failures doesn't mean they wore out. SSDs fail for many reasons, they almost never wear out.


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## DR4G00N (Jun 5, 2022)

I've used a 120GB Toshiba MLC drive as an OS drive for like 8 years and so far it has about 27TB of total writes and still works perfect, so durability should be the least of your concerns.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 5, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives
> 
> SLC (single level)
> MLC (dual level)
> ...


What I'd do is move the pagefile to a separate drive. Taking your idea: Install Windows to your 2TB HDD and use a small SSD for the pagefile, hibernation file and temp folders. Something like the following from SanDisk is designed for this kind of thing;








						NEW SanDisk SSD 32GB ReadyCache 2.5" SATA-III Internal Solid State Hard Drive  | eBay
					

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					www.ebay.com
				



But you don't need that kind of drive and if want to keep things inexpensive you could go with something like the following;








						M-Factors  2.5 Inch Internal SSD 32GB - 128GB MLC NAND SATA III Up To 550MB/s   | eBay
					

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for M-Factors  2.5 Inch Internal SSD 32GB - 128GB MLC NAND SATA III Up To 550MB/s  at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



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You really don't need anything larger than 32GB for pagefile and temp folder/file type storage.

Install Windows to the 2TB drive, making sure all other drives are unplugged. This insures Windows doesn't allocate or automatically configure the drives for anything.
After the Windows install completes and you have all drivers installed, you go into the management console and change the small drive letter to something like W: for example. Then you goto system properties and set the pagefile and temp folders to that drive letter.

This is just one school of thought. It's worked for me for over a decade.


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## chrcoluk (Jun 5, 2022)

pSLC I think still gives an endurance benefit as lower voltages are used to write the data vs TLC/QLC mode.  Not the same as native SLC but is better than native MLC.

The only small SLC drive you going to find is probably a very old model, which wont have 3d NAND, advanced firmware etc.


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 5, 2022)

You can't find SSDs with SLC flash in production anymore, this because this type flash is considered obsolete, expensive and "useless" since the market trend is following flash with high density. According to Micron's and SpecTek's SLC NAND Flash Part Catalog there are still many SLC ICs in production, some even 128/256Gb, but as I already said, SSD manufacturers don't buy them anymore.

Do you want a SSD with high endurance? Well, Team Group T-Create Expert (Micron TLC flash rated for 10K P/E cycles), Enmotus FuzeDrive P200 (Micron QLC flash operating in SLC mode, so the endurance increase to 30K P/E cycles), PNY LX3030 (the same as the Enmotus FuzeDrive P200), Samsung 970 PRO (Samsung MLC flash) and all the other SSDs that use PCM flash (for example 3D XPoint).

If you really don't want to buy anything I said you have another alternative, which is buy a very old SSD with SLC flash: MemoRight GT. Does this make sense? No.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Jun 5, 2022)

Nike_486DX said:


> optane can be considered as slc (technically its got different type of memory, but longevty-wise its ~ slc), currently using 32gig as os drive.
> 
> 
> i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.


All 3 are poor quality dramless drives. The nand tech isn't what caused them to fail most likely.

Not saying all of these apply to your particular drives but in general cheap drives commonly use low bin NAND which might not last as long. Often cheap drives also have low end controllers that are not the best at wear leveling, or the controllers themselves just don't last very long. Additionally a lack of a dram cache can also cause a lot of extra wear and tear to the NAND, reducing lifespan.

The Phision S11 controller used in the a400 for example has a know failure issue and is poor at wear leveling in general. I had an A400 die and the Kingston tech did a failure analysis and told me the controller had failed, unsurprisingly.

I'd reccomend the OP to look beyond SLC and simply look for a quality TLC drive with a dram cache.

Example:


			https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-870-evo-1tb-sata-2-5-internal-solid-state-drive/6447127.p?
		


Oh and avoid Intel SSDs altogether. Their nand is pure garbage. I had a 600p with dram tlc NVME fail with just 4tbw.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 5, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> I'd reccomend the OP to look beyond SLC and simply look for a quality TLC drive with a dram cache.


That's not a solution inline with the OP's request. The OP has an existing 2TB drive they want to use and they want a small SSD to do the heavy lifting for OS files. A full size SSD is not the solution they asked for and it may not be in the cards as far a price is concerned.



RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Oh and avoid Intel SSDs altogether. Their nand is pure garbage.


Subjective opinion that does not hold up to merit! I use Intel SSD's frequently and they fail no more or less than any of the other big-name brands.


RyzenMaster.sys said:


> I had a 600p with dram tlc NVME fail with just 4tbw.


That was one drive. It happens but is the exception rather than the rule.


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 5, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Oh and avoid Intel SSDs altogether. Their nand is pure garbage. I had a 600p with dram tlc NVME fail with just 4tbw.


This is an opinion that doesn’t make sense. Intel has in production many types and models of NAND, your 600p had 32L TLC flash, which is very old and EOL. Intel has in production 64L, 96L, 144L and TLC and QLC flash. You probably just had a bad sample, and for this reason is wrong to say “avoid Intel SSDs”.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Jun 5, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> That's not a solution inline with the OP's request. The OP has an existing 2TB drive they want to use and they want a small SSD to do the heavy lifting for OS files. A full size SSD is not the solution they asked for and it may not be in the cards as far a price is concerned.
> 
> 
> Subjective opinion that does not hold up to merit! I use Intel SSD's frequently and they fail no more or less than any of the other big-name brands.
> ...


I've owned probably 50 ssds over the past couple of years, enough for a not insignificant sample size.

I have had just 4 fail, and 3 of them were Intel drives... All failures under normal usage and with only a tiny fraction of their TBW rating. They weren't the same models either, nor same nand type.

The 600p was made in very late 2018, so no it's not that old.

I wouldn't touch an Intel drive again with a 39 and a half foot pole.

There's no real large surveys to prove one way or another, but from my experience i can't reccomend them at all.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 5, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> I've owned probably 50 ssds over the past couple of years, enough for a not insignificant sample size.
> 
> I have had just 4 fail, and 3 of them were Intel drives... All failures under normal usage and with only a tiny fraction of their TBW rating. They weren't the same models either, nor same nand type.
> 
> ...


Regardless, the durability of Intel SSD's is not the question the OP posted. Let's stay focused on their request.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Jun 5, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> Regardless, the durability of Intel SSD's is not the question the OP posted. Let's stay focused on their request.


Simply trying to name some reccomendations for reliabile drives to an op who is concerned about reliability of their SSD.


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 5, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> The 600p was made in very late 2018, so no it's not that old.


Uhm… yes, 32L flash is old and EOL. I’m talking about the flash, not the SSD itself (even though a SSD’s fail due to the flash endurance is very rare).


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 5, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Simply trying to name some reccomendations for reliabile drives to an op who is concerned about reliability of their SSD.


But you didn't pay attention to what they were asking about. So your suggestion doesn't fit the need. IF you're going to take the time to help someone, try to actually be helpful.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 7, 2022)

Buying SLC outside of enterprise channels is now very difficult and buying just one, low-capacity SLC enterprise drive as private individual is not going to be cost-effective, nor worth your time. If you're looking to use it solely as an OS swapfile location, look out for an old Intel Optane M.2 accelerator on ebay or something; They came in 16GB and 32GB capacities and have huge IOPS and endurance.

If you want higher-capacity performance and endurance, you should still be able to find MLC NAND - the 970 Pro is what I normally use for write-caches in rackmount storage that gets hammered for terabytes a day, petabyte(s) a year. The downside is that they're getting harder to buy and 512GB is the smallest size they make.


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## ThrashZone (Jun 7, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives
> 
> SLC (single level)
> MLC (dual level)
> ...


Hi,
Smallest ssd I've got is crucial mx-100 128gb still work to this day very old probably dirt cheap if around.









						Crucial MX500 250GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal SSD | CT250MX500SSD1 | Crucial.com
					

Buy Crucial MX500 250GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal SSD CT250MX500SSD1. FREE US Delivery, guaranteed 100% compatibility when ordering using our online tools.




					www.crucial.com


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## ExcuseMeWtf (Jun 7, 2022)

Nike_486DX said:


> optane can be considered as slc (technically its got different type of memory, but longevty-wise its ~ slc), currently using 32gig as os drive.
> 
> 
> i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.


Are you sure those were related to NAND exhausting its lifetime? At this timespan I sincerely doubt that.

I had 2 Crucial M4 64GBs last 8 years, then both fail shortly one after the other, so I can be reasonably sure in my cases it was lifetime related.

FTR I have Kioxia Exceria 1TB now and if there are no specific faults I'm pretty sure it will last at least as long, despite being TLC vs MLC on previous Crucials. Keep in mind that bigger drive means more space for controller to do the wear levelling.


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## Shrek (Jun 7, 2022)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Smallest ssd I've got is crucial mx-100 128gb still work to this day very old probably dirt cheap if around.
> 
> 
> ...



Just an observation

250GB $50
500GB $60

So, I'd go large


Here is a thought, if QLC gives 4 times the capacity for the same cost (it's probably not as good as this) then a 128GB SLC might cost the same as 512GB QLC; if so that seems a small price to pay for 1000 times greater endurance.


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## dgianstefani (Jun 7, 2022)

Optane 800p 118gb. It's what I use.


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## ThrashZone (Jun 7, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Just an observation
> 
> 250GB $50
> 500GB $60
> ...


Hi,
Saw a used 128 mx-100 on ebay for 20.us 
But yes not many small ssd's anymore 
But MX 500 is better than the BX 500 line just not slc so I have to agree move on to a tlc and crucial it pretty good on the mx lineup 
All my old mx ssd's still in operation all pretty much from 2010-11


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## TheLostSwede (Jun 7, 2022)

Here you go.





						SFSA128GM1AA4TO-I-NC-616-STD Swissbit | Memory Cards, Modules | DigiKey
					

Order today, ships today. SFSA128GM1AA4TO-I-NC-616-STD – Solid State Drive (SSD) FLASH - NAND (SLC) 128GB SATA III M.2 Module 3.3V from Swissbit. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.




					www.digikey.com


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 7, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Just an observation
> 
> 250GB $50
> 500GB $60
> ...


You could go Leven 1TB for $68.


			https://www.amazon.com/Leven-JS600-Internal-Solid-JS600SSD1TB/dp/B07YBYZQ1V
		

Or TeamGroup 1TB for $69


			https://www.amazon.com/TEAMGROUP-AX2-Internal-Compatible-T253A3001T0C101/dp/B08CKFDPJ3
		

Both drives are of good quality. Given that small SSD's are nearly half the cost of a large drive...
I know it's not want you asked for in the OP but since it's being discussed.



ExcuseMeWtf said:


> Keep in mind that bigger drive means more free space for controller to do the wear levelling.


There's also this to consider.


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## Shrek (Jun 7, 2022)

TheLostSwede said:


> Here you go.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Umm... OK, your point is made... (only $1,517.25)

Opps



lexluthermiester said:


> You could go Leven 1TB for $68.
> 
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Leven-JS600-Internal-Solid-JS600SSD1TB/dp/B07YBYZQ1V
> ...



Wow prices are really going down.


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## TheLostSwede (Jun 7, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Umm... OK, your point is made... (only $1,517.25)
> 
> Opps


Better?





						SNT2A128GKKDCAA0ESA0 TDK Corporation | Memory Cards, Modules | DigiKey
					

Order today, ships today. SNT2A128GKKDCAA0ESA0 – Solid State Drive (SSD) FLASH - NAND (SLC) 128GB SATA III M.2 Module 3.3V from TDK Corporation. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.




					www.digikey.com


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## Shrek (Jun 7, 2022)

TheLostSwede said:


> Better?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well yes... but


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## ThrashZone (Jun 7, 2022)

Hi,
Aren't the qlc crappy out and were only said to be good for data storage in the first place ?


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## kapone32 (Jun 7, 2022)

Unfortunately the race in NVME was to the bottom and not the top. QLC was the goal from the beginning but does not have the perceived endurance so the "performance" drives all have TLC. SLC are not any longer viable as they cost too much and they have software to mitigate that illusion now. Using that principle I would get a 500GB Kingston NV1 for $50 and call it George. If you want endurance buy a PCIe card(removable) with a controller but that will cost you.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 7, 2022)

Shrek said:


> Wow prices are really going down.


And those are good quality drives. They are DRAMless, but both are 3DTLC based and will not disappoint. If you're on a budget(times are tough, no shame if you are), both of those drives can serve your needs.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Jun 7, 2022)

Would not reccomend a budget dramless drive since you are very concerned about longevity for reasons I've stated before. It's worth it to spend the extra money for a higher end drive if you have the ability too. Faster and should last longer.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 7, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Would not reccomend a budget dramless drive since you are very concerned about longevity for reasons I've stated before. It's worth it to spend the extra money for a higher end drive if you have the ability too.


Nonsense. I use them all the time and have been for years. Even Kingspec dramless drives work perfectly. Context is important. Shrek is doing this on a budget. Premium drives might not fit that need.


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## The red spirit (Jun 7, 2022)

Voluman said:


> I don't have experience with qlc/plc, but for a normal daily usage you are good to go with any kind/form of ssd.
> If you plan to write the drive fully, on daily basis than probably stick with slc with big spare area, but other than this you should no worries.


Not at all. QLC is pretty bad as it is. It's really slow and lacks reliability. It's not even meaningfully cheaper to be worth considering.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 7, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> Nonsense. I use them all the time and have been for years. Even Kingspec dramless drives work perfectly. Context is important. Shrek is doing this on a budget. Premium drives might not fit that need.


Exactly - The DRAMless SN570 one of the fastest drives tested by W1zzard in ages, and it's dirt cheap.
DRAMless usually means cheap, it doesn't always mean bad.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> DRAMless usually means cheap, it doesn't always mean bad.


Exactly!


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 7, 2022)

The red spirit said:


> Not at all. QLC is pretty bad as it is. It's really slow and lacks reliability. It's not even meaningfully cheaper to be worth considering.


QLC hasn't proven any less reliable than other NAND types yet.
I'll agree that you shouldn't look at QLC unless it's _significantly_ cheaper than TLC, because it is slower when subjected to sustained writes _and_ you're getting lower endurance for sure.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> QLC hasn't proven any less reliable than other NAND types yet.


BullMuffins! I have replaced more failing/failed QLC based drives in the last two years than any other type of drive combined in the same period, regardless of the age of the drive.


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## The red spirit (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> QLC hasn't proven any less reliable than other NAND types yet.
> I'll agree that you shouldn't look at QLC unless it's _significantly_ cheaper than TLC, because it is slower when subjected to sustained writes _and_ you're getting lower endurance for sure.


It already has way less rated writes and they are really low for long term use. It's essentially a disposable technology.


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## 80251 (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> Buying SLC outside of enterprise channels is now very difficult and buying just one, low-capacity SLC enterprise drive as private individual is not going to be cost-effective, nor worth your time. If you're looking to use it solely as an OS swapfile location, look out for an old Intel Optane M.2 accelerator on ebay or something; They came in 16GB and 32GB capacities and have huge IOPS and endurance.
> 
> If you want higher-capacity performance and endurance, you should still be able to find MLC NAND - the 970 Pro is what I normally use for write-caches in rackmount storage that gets hammered for terabytes a day, petabyte(s) a year. The downside is that they're getting harder to buy and 512GB is the smallest size they make.


The Samsung 970 Pro seems to have kept its value well and seem to sell for higher prices than the 980 Pro at least when I was researching 1 TiB M.2 SSD's a month ago.


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## ThrashZone (Jun 7, 2022)

80251 said:


> The Samsung 970 Pro seems to have kept its value well and seem to sell for higher prices than the 980 Pro at least when I was researching 1 TiB M.2 SSD's a month ago.


Hi,
980's had shit firmware off the bat just now working better.


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 7, 2022)

80251 said:


> The Samsung 970 Pro seems to have kept its value well and seem to sell for higher prices than the 980 Pro at least when I was researching 1 TiB M.2 SSD's a month ago.


Yeah, it's normal, MLC is more expensive than TLC.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 7, 2022)

80251 said:


> The Samsung 970 Pro seems to have kept its value well and seem to sell for higher prices than the 980 Pro at least when I was researching 1 TiB M.2 SSD's a month ago.





Black [Super Saiyan Rosé] said:


> Yeah, it's normal, MLC is more expensive than TLC.


This is it.
MLC NAND is always going to cost 50% more than TLC NAND when comparing similar capacity drives.
50% premium is a small price to pay for double the raw NAND performance and quadruple the endurance though. If that is specifically what you're looking for, the old 970Pro is a _bargain_.



The red spirit said:


> It already has way less rated writes and they are really low for long term use. It's essentially a disposable technology.


Endurance and reliability are different things; Don't confuse them - that's all I'm saying.


lexluthermiester said:


> BullMuffins! I have replaced more failing/failed QLC based drives in the last two years than any other type of drive combined in the same period, regardless of the age of the drive.


I can't argue against empirical data if you have any decent sample size. My only guess is sample bias, in that there are almost no "good, high-quality" QLC drives because the technology is only really used in consumer drives in the lowest-cost, most-corners-cut market segment. Even OEMs have moved away from using QLC in laptops because the cost savings aren't worth the performance sacrifices. So, your sample of QLC drives are all bottom-tier products, whilst your TLC sample will likely include both bottom-tier products but also many more higher-quality, OEM-validated, and higher-performing, general-purpose drives.

QLC is used plenty in enterprise solutions but specifically for storage solutions where the QLC is part of tiered storage where that particular tier gets fewer writes and is changed infrequently.


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## The red spirit (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> Endurance and reliability are different things; Don't confuse them - that's all I'm saying.


It's more like they are predictably unreliable. Anyway, TLC is the minimum that anyone should get.


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> Endurance and reliability are different things; Don't confuse them - that's all I'm saying.


True, "endurance" means P/E cycles, "reliability" means data retention.


Chrispy_ said:


> My only guess is sample bias, in that there are almost no "good, high-quality" QLC drives because the technology is only really used in consumer drives in the lowest-cost, most-corners-cut market segment.


I guess this is due to the fact that only Intel is able to produce good QLC, even Samsung struggled with it.


The red spirit said:


> It's more like they are predictably unreliable. Anyway, TLC is the minimum that anyone should get.


I think I will never understand all this hate towards QLC flash in general. 

I mean, if a random user ask you a SSD with low budget (lower than $90 for 1TB, for example - I don't know the exact prices of the SSDs where you live but in my country you have to spend at least $100 for a decent NVMe TLC drive) and he would use it as secondary drive to store something like games (which do more reads than writes), why should TLC be the minimum? Why shouldn't you suggest a good QLC drive like an Intel 670p?


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 7, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> I can't argue against empirical data if you have any decent sample size.


I do, but it's part of my business records, which I'm not going to disclose publicly. So you all would have to have some faith in my word on the matter, which I know some of you will not.



Chrispy_ said:


> Endurance and reliability are different things; Don't confuse them - that's all I'm saying.





Black [Super Saiyan Rosé] said:


> True, "endurance" means P/E cycles, "reliability" means data retention.


Endurance and Reliability are synonyms. Just throwing it out there..


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## jallenlabs (Jun 7, 2022)

Optane has great durability and performance.  Smallest I would go would be a Optane 4801 100GB stick.  I have 4 280gb models in my workstation and love em.  In some scenarios they are much faster than the fastest nand and sometimes not so much.  I like them because they last forever in my use case and I noticed a performance increase when looking through large libraries of photographs.








						Optane Ssd Dc P4801x Series - Newegg.com
					

Buy Optane Ssd Dc P4801x Series with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




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## 80251 (Jun 7, 2022)

jallenlabs said:


> Optane has great durability and performance.  Smallest I would go would be a Optane 4801 100GB stick.  I have 4 280gb models in my workstation and love em.  In some scenarios they are much faster than the fastest nand and sometimes not so much.  I like them because they last forever in my use case and I noticed a performance increase when looking through large libraries of photographs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Do you think the larger, much, much, much more expensive data center optane SSD's are worth purchasing? Are they rated for more TBWs than the Samsung SSDs?


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 7, 2022)

80251 said:


> Do you think the larger, much, much, much more expensive data center optane SSD's are worth purchasing? Are they rated for more TBWs than the Samsung SSDs?


Intel Optane SSDs use 3D XPoint as flash, not SLC, MLC, TLC or QLC and this type of flash is decades ahead than "normal" NAND as endurance and performance.


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## dgianstefani (Jun 8, 2022)

The 800p is the best boot drive under $500 you can buy, only beaten by the 905p. 118gb is more than enough for OS and programs, just use a secondary game and media drive, and it's cheap at $100.


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## Aquinus (Jun 8, 2022)

If you're really worried about write endurance, then just don't use the entire disk. Partition something like 80% of the drive and leave 20% free. That'll let the SSD controller do all the wear leveling it needs in an effective way. Any modern SSD should do fine under the described workloads and even without overprovisioning though. As always though, try to not fill an SSD.


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## Shrek (Jun 8, 2022)

I recall a trick whereby one formats a hard drive to a smaller space so the heads did not have to move so far.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 8, 2022)

Shrek said:


> I recall a trick whereby one formats a hard drive to a smaller space so the heads did not have to move so far.



It's called Partitioning which wastes space on a HDD also SSDs, better to have a separate drive for paging, even though I never had a problem paging on my SSD, I just set it to 4 GibiBytes (4096 KibiBytes).


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 8, 2022)

Shrek said:


> I recall a trick whereby one formats a hard drive to a smaller space so the heads did not have to move so far.


That still works and is very effective at optimizing HDD performance.



eidairaman1 said:


> which wastes space on a HDD also SSDs


How?


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## Athlonite (Jun 8, 2022)

any of the first 3 in your list with a high TBW although the smaller you go the less TBW's you are going to get so basically I'd not go below a 1TB NVMe SSD as for actual survivability of a drive well you bet's ya money and you takes ya risks just like with any electronic device it could last upto 60 years but then again it may only last 6 months who knows 

and if your not worried about out n out speed demons then just stick to Gen 3 x4 SSD's and make sure they stay relatively cool 50~65c when being written to otherwise anything with Micron or Samsung nand should do the job you want reliably for the foreseeable future


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 8, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> That still works and is very effective at optimizing HDD performance.
> 
> 
> How?


Because it occupies space when those boundries are set, they are written to, to prevent any data being written in that spot.


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## jallenlabs (Jun 8, 2022)

80251 said:


> Do you think the larger, much, much, much more expensive data center optane SSD's are worth purchasing? Are they rated for more TBWs than the Samsung SSDs?


10.9 PBW on the 100GB model Optane.  My "consumer" Optane 900ps are 5.11 PBW.  Comparable Samung 980Pro? 150TB.


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## 80251 (Jun 8, 2022)

@jallenlabs
That is amazing. Maybe I should save my nickels and dimes and buy one of the bigger optane DC SSD's rather than waste my money on the riff-raff!


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## The red spirit (Jun 8, 2022)

Black [Super Saiyan Rosé] said:


> I mean, if a random user ask you a SSD with low budget (lower than $90 for 1TB, for example - I don't know the exact prices of the SSDs where you live but in my country you have to spend at least $100 for a decent NVMe TLC drive) and he would use it as secondary drive to store something like games (which do more reads than writes), why should TLC be the minimum? Why shouldn't you suggest a good QLC drive like an Intel 670p?


Because QLC drives have sequential speed basically the same or slightly worse than hard drive and you only save 5-10 dollars tops by not going TLC, which is easily 2 times as fast. Also endurance of QLC drive is really subpar, basically half of TLC. Not sure about you, but my TLC SSD, which I have for 2-3 years already already lost 13% of its life. And I tried to not abuse it, meaning no torrenting on it. You might think that's excessive as I won't keep system running for decades. Fine, but I'm not really convinced that using up all wear allowance is a good idea, since it is calculated to be fine for 80% of all drives made and your drive might be in that unfortunate 20%. Also the drive I use does have DRAM cache, if it didn't, it should wear out significantly faster. And now think about QLC drives. They are at least 2 times worse (It might be 4 times, because it might be squared) in performance and endurance. And on top of that, QLC is still not proven technology to be good for long term storage due to all SSDs having to be able to keep data intact unpowered for some time, QLC might further reduce tolerance for that. And if you are so desperate for storage, might as well just get hard drive at that point. No worries about endurance, a bit worse performance, but times more space. QLC as it is today, doesn't have a proper reason to exist, PLC is even worse and in any case should be avoided. Also if you need to make hard drive a bit faster, you can just compress data on it and thus you might save to time.


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## AleXXX666 (Jun 8, 2022)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Unless you are chia mining, endurance is not going to get an issue for 99.9% of desktop users. Consider a Samsung "pro" drive if you want maximum reliability.


endurance IS an issue if you have one of cheapest ssd, no diff is it sata or nvme. they just BSOD or won't detect in bios after more than 6 months of "light" usage. so this is common myth "get a cheapest one" - it works only if you have very old pc/laptop to replace died hdd or make it a little faster. for normal daily machine get some decent $70+ ssd. WD, Corsair, Samsung (but not the latest and cheapest), Kingston only DC series.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 8, 2022)

eidairaman1 said:


> Because it occupies space when those boundries are set, they are written to, to prevent any data being written in that spot.


Trivial amounts of space. A few MB at most, hardly anything to complain or worry about.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 8, 2022)

I'm using a 256GB silicon power Gen3 x4 NVME, pretty fast, too




https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silicon-Power-256GB-Gen3x4-Internal/dp/B07P8KXX4B


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 8, 2022)

The red spirit said:


> Because QLC drives have sequential speed basically the same or slightly worse than hard drive and you only save 5-10 dollars tops by not going TLC, which is easily 2 times as fast. Also endurance of QLC drive is really subpar, basically half of TLC. Not sure about you, but my TLC SSD, which I have for 2-3 years already already lost 13% of its life. And I tried to not abuse it, meaning no torrenting on it. You might think that's excessive as I won't keep system running for decades. Fine, but I'm not really convinced that using up all wear allowance is a good idea, since it is calculated to be fine for 80% of all drives made and your drive might be in that unfortunate 20%. Also the drive I use does have DRAM cache, if it didn't, it should wear out significantly faster. And now think about QLC drives. They are at least 2 times worse (It might be 4 times, because it might be squared) in performance and endurance. And on top of that, QLC is still not proven technology to be good for long term storage due to all SSDs having to be able to keep data intact unpowered for some time, QLC might further reduce tolerance for that. And if you are so desperate for storage, might as well just get hard drive at that point. No worries about endurance, a bit worse performance, but times more space. QLC as it is today, doesn't have a proper reason to exist, PLC is even worse and in any case should be avoided. Also if you need to make hard drive a bit faster, you can just compress data on it and thus you might save to time.


I agree, but I said the user would use the drive as secondary, not for OS.


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## The red spirit (Jun 8, 2022)

Black [Super Saiyan Rosé] said:


> I agree, but I said the user would use the drive as secondary, not for OS.


Then hard drive is just much better perf/dollar device for that. What you shell out for 1TB QLC e-waste, can buy you 3-4TB hard drive.


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## Wooden Law - Black (Jun 8, 2022)

The red spirit said:


> Then hard drive is just much better perf/dollar device for that. What you shell out for 1TB QLC e-waste, can buy you 3-4TB hard drive.


But loading times are longer…


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## ExcuseMeWtf (Jun 8, 2022)

QLC is still unproven technology regarding its effective lifetime barring controller issues and such. Might very well be that HDD will last significantly longer, and loading times shouldn't be THAT awful when you have games and OS on separate drives.


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## The red spirit (Jun 8, 2022)

Black [Super Saiyan Rosé] said:


> But loading times are longer…


Dowloading times are always worse


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 8, 2022)

Black [Super Saiyan Rosé] said:


> But loading times are longer…


That's the trade off you make, slower speed for MUCH great storage space.


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## chrcoluk (Jun 8, 2022)

Shrek said:


> I recall a trick whereby one formats a hard drive to a smaller space so the heads did not have to move so far.


Indeed.

I have a story to tell.

I used to use a 36 gig raptor (which by the way works fine today, very high quality built drives).
I then decided I needed more space, so the choice was the new 72gig raptor, or a WD black 640 gig (this also still works).  In those days WD blacks were very well built drives as well inheriting a few features from raptors.

I ultimately decided to buy the 640 gig, I made a 40 gig partition at the start, which basically meant for the OS it was assured the use of the fastest part of the disk which gave it access times only slightly worse than my old raptor, and throughput in excess.  Of course the performance on rest of disk wasnt as good but I treated it as a fast OS disk, and a bonus slower extra 600 gig disk tacked on.  Great decision.

It was also a well known tweak to make a dedicated partition for a swap file, to ensure it wasnt competing for sectors with anything else (no fragmentation) and assurance to be on faster part of disk.


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## Shrek (Jun 8, 2022)

I like things that are thought through like this.


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## jallenlabs (Jun 8, 2022)

Tigger said:


> I'm using a 256GB silicon power Gen3 x4 NVME, pretty fast, too
> View attachment 250257
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silicon-Power-256GB-Gen3x4-Internal/dp/B07P8KXX4B


For reference, my 3 year old Optanes (Ive only owned them six months, 2 were new, 2 used.
Then my WD SN750blk.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 8, 2022)

jallenlabs said:


> For reference, my 3 year old Optanes (Ive only owned them six months, 2 were new, 2 used.
> Then my WD SN750blk.View attachment 250335View attachment 250336



My 1TB WD SN850's (got 2) are near 7000MB/s SEQ1M


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## jallenlabs (Jun 9, 2022)

Tigger said:


> My 1TB WD SN850's (got 2) are near 7000MB/s SEQ1M


Im sure.  Got my eye on a sn850 or a kingston Fury.  How are the Random 4k reads and writes?  Cuz its not like I sit around all day and move files from drive to drive.  Though it is fun to see how fast GBs go on the new drives, I must say.  Wish I could get a new gen Optane as those are burn burners!


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## ThrashZone (Jun 9, 2022)

Shrek said:


> I like things that are thought through like this.


Hi,
Yep budget be damned


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## chrcoluk (Jun 9, 2022)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Yep budget be damned


Both drives were similarly priced.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Jun 9, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> That's not a solution inline with the OP's request. The OP has an existing 2TB drive they want to use and they want a small SSD to do the heavy lifting for OS files. A full size SSD is not the solution they asked for and it may not be in the cards as far a price is concerned.
> 
> 
> Subjective opinion that does not hold up to merit! I use Intel SSD's frequently and they fail no more or less than any of the other big-name brands.
> ...


I'm having a hard time here.

The response you've provided is a wonderful encapsulation.  There are true SLC drive options...that are astronomically expensive.  The problem is that if you're willing to pay for a true SLC drive, then it's functionally going to cost as much as a decently sized TLC drive.


My other problem is the fundamental conceit.  Catastrophic failures happen in both mechanical and flash memory.  Right now, the MTBF of most TLC flash is entirely in-line with that of HDDs (in consumer usage scenarios).  As such, why is this even a reasonable discussion in a home PC?  If this was a data center I'd say there's a reason to ask...but even if the PC is used as an always on home server it'd spend most of its time off or idle.



I do offer criticism of Intel and QLC though.  It doesn't provide either the performance or the costing structure to justify a "small" drive.  Whatever you personally believe, the process is designed to produce volumes of storage cheap...and seems to be at the root of why the OP is fascinated with SLC.  Of course, it's all relative.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 9, 2022)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> I'm having a hard time here.


Are you?


lilhasselhoffer said:


> The response you've provided is a wonderful encapsulation.


An interesting postulation.


lilhasselhoffer said:


> My other problem is the fundamental conceit.


Veiled insults will get you nothing except maybe the same returned in kind.


lilhasselhoffer said:


> Catastrophic failures happen in both mechanical and flash memory.


Oh? What an earth-shattering revelation THAT is...


lilhasselhoffer said:


> Right now, the MTBF of most TLC flash is entirely in-line with that of HDDs (in consumer usage scenarios). As such, why is this even a reasonable discussion in a home PC?


Hmm. Seems like you've missed some context, and if you had not started out with insults I would be all to happy to help you understand, but alas..


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 9, 2022)

jallenlabs said:


> Im sure.  Got my eye on a sn850 or a kingston Fury.  How are the Random 4k reads and writes?  Cuz its not like I sit around all day and move files from drive to drive.  Though it is fun to see how fast GBs go on the new drives, I must say.  Wish I could get a new gen Optane as those are burn burners!






This is both the SN850's As you can see, being empty or 60% used does not really impact speeds.


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