Sabrent Rides the Chia Cryptocurrency Wave, Announces "Plotripper" SSDs with up to 54,000 TBW Endurance

[Raevenlord]

Sabrent, which has become one of the go-tos in the world of Chia plotting and farming due to the price/performance/endurance ratio of its Rocket NVMe SSDs, has announced a new series of products specifically developed and marketed towards the Chia plotting crowds. Their new Plotripper SSDs (which drink from a quite obvious reference to AMD's Threadripper) have been designed to endure the harsh writing cycles for Chia plotting. Plotting is the process wherein you calculate the cryptographically-generated plots, and which can incur SSDs on a 1.6 TB write workload per 101 GB plot. The finished plot is then usually offloaded to a slow, capacious storage device (such as an external HDD) where it lays, awaiting for network challenges ad-infinitum. At time of writing, the total storage committed to Chia farming is estimated at 14 Exabytes.

The new Plotripper products are available in a mainstream and a "pro" variant. The mainstream Sabrent Plotripper offers a 10,000 TBW for its 2 TB capacity, which is already one of the highest available in consumer drives (until now). The Pro versions, however, promise 27,000 TBW of endurance for its 1 Tb capacity, and a staggering 54,000 TBW endurance rating for the 2 TB one. No word on pricing as of now, but these are sure to become some of the most sought-after SSDs for anyone planning to enter the Chia "farming" scene - and will definitely be priced accordingly.



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[Chomiq]

SSD and HDD manufacturers are turning tricks for a quick buck.

 

[kayjay010101]

54PBW on a 2TB drive is actually insane. That's like 2x the endurance of SLC. How have they managed to do this?

 

[iO]

54PBW on a 2TB drive is actually insane. That's like 2x the endurance of SLC. How have they managed to do this?

8TB QLC drive running in SLC mode.

 

[R-T-B]

8TB QLC drive running in SLC mode.

Yeah, most chips these days can switch modes for reduced capacity, and increased longevity.

 

[ZoneDymo]

SSD and HDD manufacturers are turning tricks for a quick buck.

Me so lasting, me mine for long time

 

[elghinnarisa]

If I average out the data written to my 7 SSDs over their lifetime it averages out to 95GB per day. So 54000 TBW would last me a good ~1600 years.

 

[Dr_b_]

Maybe this is for the imminent pool farming or the industrial farming that is happening in asia. Wouldn't mind having some of these for regular storage

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Isn't it funny, how all of a sudden there are TBW drives that live way way way waaaay longer. Too bad there is no "middle finger" emoji.

 

[Chomiq]

Me so lasting, me mine for long time

Retailers are the scooter snatching thieves in this scenario.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Guess I'm not in the market for a backup HDD anymore... Although if anyone wants to make a recommendation on a 4TB-8TB that they've had good experience with and is at a good price, it would be appreciated. I've read plenty of reviews, but when I decide on a product and then read the personal reviews there's always people complaining and it erodes my confidence

 

[Jism]

54PBW on a 2TB drive is actually insane. That's like 2x the endurance of SLC. How have they managed to do this?

Proberly a large cache with slow writeback; keeping as much as possible writes offloaded.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Had to happen sooner or later, not like ssd makers dont have the stock for this.

 

[n-ster]

54PBW on a 2TB drive is actually insane. That's like 2x the endurance of SLC. How have they managed to do this?

It really is! It beats a bunch of DC SSDs, hell it takes 1000$ P5800X 400GB or P4801x 375GB to get there, I don't even think 1st gen optane P4800x had that much endurance on their 1.5tb capacity

 

[Max(IT)]

welcome to the world of disposable SSDs...
crypto mining is really out of control. I really hope this madness will stop soon.

 

[Space Lynx]

thanks Sabrent, you just solidified I am never buying a product from you ever again for supporting this non-sense. (ever again implies I bought from them before, woops, I have never bought from them and I will continue to do so now)

I was about to buy your Rocket Q nvme soon too, LOL take care Sabrent, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[lexluthermiester]

54PBW on a 2TB drive is actually insane. That's like 2x the endurance of SLC. How have they managed to do this?

8TB QLC drive running in SLC mode.

Yeah, most chips these days can switch modes for reduced capacity, and increased longevity.

Yup, that's likely exactly how they're doing it. Otherwise there is just no way for it to work, even for the best MLC. Although, if we think about it, this does mean the write endurance's has been improved upon of in "SLC mode" QLC is getting better endurance than what was believed to be the upper ceiling of SLC.

Here's the $64 question: Do these drives ACTUALLY perform as advertised? If yes, then I want some of this "SLC mode" stuff! Even if it only gets close, I'd still say it's a winner.

I don't even think 1st gen optane P4800x had that much endurance on their 1.5tb capacity

They didn't. But then again, we have progressed since that time..

 

[Space Lynx]

Yup, that's likely exactly how they're doing it. Otherwise there is just no way for it to work, even for the best MLC. Although, if we think about it, this does mean the write endurance's has been improved upon of in "SLC mode" QLC is getting better endurance than what was believed to be the upper ceiling of SLC.

Here's the $64 question: Do these drive ACTUALLY perform as advertised? If yes, then I want some of this "SLC mode" stuff! Even if it only gets close, I'd still say it's a winner.


They didn't. But then again, we have progressed since that time..

they can do all the fancy mumbo jumbo they want, they ain't getting a penny from me! looks like I am just going to grab the WD SN750 for my gtx 1070 laptop next sale it has. unless I can find the 970 evo plus for 140.

 

[n-ster]

They didn't. But then again, we have progressed since that time..

Not nearly to this level, the 1TB 970 Pro and 2TB 980 Pro models are at 1200TBW, compared to this 1TB 27000TBW and 2TB 54000TBW

A huge deal when Optane was announce was that write endurance. What consumer model have you seen get even a 5th of the 54 000 TBW?

 

[lexluthermiester]

they can do all the fancy mumbo jumbo they want, they ain't getting a penny from me!

Wait, let me understand you correctly, if this is legit and drive endurances are as advertised, you would turn your nose up at it instead of buying one for personal use? Why?

What consumer model have you seen get even a 5th of the 54 000 TBW?

The total written is not the important factor, it is the percentage of writes VS total space available that we need pay attention to.

54000TBW VS 2TB actual space. Simple division shows that is a total drive durability of 27000P/E cycles, putting this NAND based drive firmly above MLC of any kind and getting into the solidly performing SLC range. Whatever methods Sabrent is using to achieve this performance is worth paying attention too.

So to answer your question, I have two SSD's that are capable of that level of performance, both are SLC based but they are only 16GB and 32GB in capacity. Both are OCZ branded. What makes this proposed Sabrent product a stand out drive is the fact that it gets SLC like durability in a 2TB capacity. Even if they were to drop it to MLC mode and make a 4TB drive it would be an EXCELLENT consumer model!

So the question remains: What are the prices?

 

[n-ster]

they can do all the fancy mumbo jumbo they want, they ain't getting a penny from me! looks like I am just going to grab the WD SN750 for my gtx 1070 laptop next sale it has. unless I can find the 970 evo plus for 140.

You realize they are a for profit company right? and Chia is actually a small portion that would enjoy this kind of endurance, this kind of NAND endurance paired with a reliable controller could be a killer product in the server storage market.

I'd rather turn my nose up to QLC NAND, I feel like it'll ruin the good quality value SSDs we have right now. QLC is fine in specific cases, like the Intel H20, the Samsung 980 went DRAM-less TLC already, imagine it being QLC and the marketing just uses the speeds of the SLC cache, the majority would be none the wiser

 

[Space Lynx]

Wait, let me understand you correctly, if this is legit and drive endurances are as advertised, you would turn your nose up at it instead of buying one for personal use? Why?

because there is a catch. if there was a way to get that many TBW with a 1TB drive, it would have been done already.

also any supporting of crypto in any form to keep it alive is a major no for me.

You realize they are a for profit company right? and Chia is actually a small portion that would enjoy this kind of endurance, this kind of NAND endurance paired with a reliable controller could be a killer product in the server storage market.

I'd rather turn my nose up to QLC NAND, I feel like it'll ruin the good quality value SSDs we have right now. QLC is fine in specific cases, like the Intel H20, the Samsung 980 went DRAM-less TLC already, imagine it being QLC and the marketing just uses the speeds of the SLC cache, the majority would be none the wiser

you are right! and as a capitalist consumer, I choose not to buy them! that's how capitalism works, its great!

 

[lexluthermiester]

because there is a catch. if there was a way to get that many TBW with a 1TB drive, it would have been done already.

See above edit...

I'd rather turn my nose up to QLC NAND, I feel like it'll ruin the good quality value SSDs we have right now.

You're not following. NAND made to QLC standards but run in an SLC mode is still effectively SLC and becomes a higher quality product by virtue of it's increased effective durability. In effect, QLC stops being QLC when run in an SLC mode. It stops being garbage and becomes something worth looking at.

 

[R-T-B]

also any supporting of crypto in any form to keep it alive is a major no for me.

I don't get why people get so worked up around crypto. If you're concerned about the electric usage, Chia doesn't have it. If your concerned about ewaste, that's legit I guess, but they were going to buy something else anyways and the company is just pivoting.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain in general has the potential to give the world something great. I have always believed that. It is very much in it's infancy though, nearly everyone acknowledges this. The energy usage will fall with time, and the benefits will be fully realized with time. If people don't take weird stances like this, prematurely killing it anyways.

I mean it's totally your call. I just don't personally get it.

 

[claster17]

54PBW on a 2TB drive is actually insane. That's like 2x the endurance of SLC. How have they managed to do this?

SLC is capable of 50-100x the P/E cycles compared to QLC.
MLC is 5-10x more durable than QLC.
TLC is about 3x more than QLC.