TR Forums

I don't see the point of the current crop of "budget" TLC SSDs. For a few dollars more you can get the MX300, which due to its odd sizing is usually better $/GiB anyways. Spending even more than that gets you smack into midrange / older MLC drive territory.

There's no need to spend the Samsung tax to get a better quality drive, prices are compressed so much that every $10 gets you into a higher tier.

EzioAs wrote:

I looked at the Bench (AnandTech) between the SP550 and the MX300. It seems like the MX300 is overall faster and in some cases, significantly. However, the price is super attractive (not US btw) and definitely in the ballpark of what I'm comfortable spending on. I'll probably grab this one.

The MX300 should perform better, but that is in part because Micron takes a unique approach amongst "fast SLC caching" TLC NAND drives. The drive itself dynamically changes the amount of NAND it toggles between SLC and TLC modes, so overall it will probably usually have more than 8GB dedicated to SLC operation. The SP550 is locked at 8GB, so ultimately which drive you want should depend on if you are going to be exceeding that 8GB or not per day. I don't see it being an issue with casual use, but for benchmarking or serious content creation, encoding, or using it to download blu-ray rips might do it.

Vhalidictes wrote:

I don't see the point of the current crop of "budget" TLC SSDs. For a few dollars more you can get the MX300, which due to its odd sizing is usually better $/GiB anyways. Spending even more than that gets you smack into midrange / older MLC drive territory.

You do realize the MX300 is still a TLC drive, right?  :wink: 

For the exact same price as the MX300 one might as well get the Transcend 370S which is 100% MLC, non-3D NAND and has a better endurance rating than any 3D NAND could possibly offer. It also will not have the performance consistency issue of fast-write SLC-caching TLC drives.

Kougar wrote:

Vhalidictes wrote:

I don't see the point of the current crop of "budget" TLC SSDs. For a few dollars more you can get the MX300, which due to its odd sizing is usually better $/GiB anyways. Spending even more than that gets you smack into midrange / older MLC drive territory.

You do realize the MX300 is still a TLC drive, right?  :wink: 

For the exact same price as the MX300 one might as well get the Transcend 370S which is 100% MLC, non-3D NAND and has a better endurance rating than any 3D NAND could possibly offer. It also will not have the performance consistency issue of fast-write SLC-caching TLC drives.

Most reviews show that 3D-NAND has different performance characteristics than planar TLC. That's setting aside the specific example of the MX300, which has 1) more user space available, and 2) very low power use.

You have a good point that the long-term durability of the Micron 3D-NAND is in question. Maybe a good tech site could run an updated write endurance test? Fortunately as TLC drives proliferate the importance of that kind of testing has faded.

Vhalidictes wrote:

Most reviews show that 3D-NAND has different performance characteristics than planar TLC. 

Yes, most 3-D NAND (MLC or TLC) has more *space between cells - in some cases comparable to SLC NAND.  (..and of course the use of larger SLC NAND as an I/O cache should extend the life of the drive further.) ..and yes, I'm contradicting Kougar's statement (w/ respect to 3D NAND).

*the idea is that you don't have to pack cells so close to each other in a single plane because you can now pack cells vertically (..and even keep the distance vertically between cells further apart than the distance between a single plane configuration), they also tend to be larger cells with lower voltage. Samsung has a promo on this somewhere.. Of course over time they will shrink both the cell size and the space between cells on 3D NAND..  (..it's why the 850 Pro *should* have better longevity with respect to cell size and distance - it's "first" gen. rather like larger SLC NAND.)

CScottG wrote:

Vhalidictes wrote:

Most reviews show that 3D-NAND has different performance characteristics than planar TLC. 

Yes, most 3-D NAND (MLC or TLC) has more *space between cells - in some cases comparable to SLC NAND.  (..and of course the use of larger SLC NAND as an I/O cache should extend the life of the drive further.) ..and yes, I'm contradicting Kougar's statement (w/ respect to 3D NAND).

*the idea is that you don't have to pack cells so close to each other in a single plane because you can now pack cells vertically (..and even keep the distance vertically between cells further apart than the distance between a single plane configuration), they also tend to be larger cells with lower voltage. Samsung has a promo on this somewhere.. Of course over time they will shrink both the cell size and the space between cells on 3D NAND..  (..it's why the 850 Pro *should* have better longevity with respect to cell size and distance - it's "first" gen. rather like larger SLC NAND.)

Yup-read 40nm and 30nm for Samsung-Anyone know what IMFT are using?

EzioAs wrote:

I looked at the Bench (AnandTech) between the SP550 and the MX300. It seems like the MX300 is overall faster and in some cases, significantly. However, the price is super attractive (not US btw) and definitely in the ballpark of what I'm comfortable spending on.

You asked for our advice-Best general advice-AVOID PLANER TLC(With the exception of Samsung 750EVO and Sandisk Ultra2)
Save a few more dollars and get something better-MLC or 3D-TLC.

Vhalidictes wrote:

You have a good point that the long-term durability of the Micron 3D-NAND is in question. Maybe a good tech site could run an updated write endurance test? Fortunately as TLC drives proliferate the importance of that kind of testing has faded.

Tom's did one here, it's rather telling: http://techreport.com/news/31296/tom-hardware-hammers-an-intel-600p-ssd-for-science

For 250/256GB models:

• Intel 600p:  140TB
• Samsung 950 Pro: 200TB
• Samsung 960 EVO: 100TB
• Crucial MX300: 80TB
• ADATA SP550 90TB
• Transcend 370S: 280TB

The MX300 is 275GB, yet it also has the worst endurance rating of the lot.

The Transcend 370S uses the last generation of MLC non-3D NAND. The NAND just being "3D" negatively affects endurance, not just if it is TLC. But I think it is telling enough that you can add the MX300, 960 EVO, and most of the 600p together to get to the 370S endurance rating. I know the lifespan of the 370S will outlast whatever computer it is in, but the takeaway here is modern 3D TLC NAND (and even 3D MLC) has already traded away most of its endurance for lower cost. In a few more generations budget SSDs may simply start wearing out in the same time span as regular HDDs. 

@Kougar
For 250/256GB models:

• Intel 600p:  140TB
• Samsung 950 Pro: 200TB
• Samsung 960 EVO: 100TB
• Crucial MX300: 80TB
• ADATA SP550 90TB
• Transcend 370S: 280TB

The MX300 is 275GB, yet it also has the worst endurance rating of the lot.

The Transcend 370S uses the last generation of MLC non-3D NAND. The NAND just being "3D" negatively affects endurance, not just if it is TLC. But I think it is telling enough that you can add the MX300, 960 EVO, and most of the 600p together to get to the 370S endurance rating. I know the lifespan of the 370S will outlast whatever computer it is in, but the takeaway here is modern 3D TLC NAND (and even 3D MLC) has already traded away most of its endurance for lower cost. In a few more generations budget SSDs may simply start wearing out in the same time span as regular HDDs. 


No disrespect to that 370s-I think it"s a good drive-But I think Transcend pulled that 280TB rating out of a hat.(not saying it won't live that long)
Crucial's own BX100 has the exact same configuration,and I'm sure they keep the best flash for themselves,with a 72TB endurance rating.....................
Pretty sure Sammy taking their 3D back to 30/40nm-endurance is comparable to planer MLC............
Don't know about the IMFT stuff thro............................

Kougar wrote:

Vhalidictes wrote:

You have a good point that the long-term durability of the Micron 3D-NAND is in question. Maybe a good tech site could run an updated write endurance test? Fortunately as TLC drives proliferate the importance of that kind of testing has faded.

Tom's did one here, it's rather telling: http://techreport.com/news/31296/tom-hardware-hammers-an-intel-600p-ssd-for-science

It is, but you need to read it more closely, particularly Tom's Hardware's conclusion.  

"We think Intel is very aggressive with the amount of data written before moving into a read-only state. That is likely why we didn't see any latency in our synthetic tests even with only 10% of SSD life left."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/int ... 826-2.html

In essence Intel is running a very protective protocol for that drive, shutting-down writes LONG before the drive would fail.  ALSO, it might be utterly dependent on the wear the SLC buffer is undergoing, not necessarily how degraded the vertical NAND has become.  (..they did note that the SLC buffer was "inconsistent" - my guess is that after a few days that buffer was in operation a LOT, and that as the algorithm advanced and the wear level detected (becoming more worn), it became increasingly "inconsistent" in an effort to prolong drive life.)

HERETIC wrote:

Pretty sure Sammy taking their 3D back to 30/40nm-endurance is comparable to planer MLC............

No, it isn't. Samsung documents its 950 and 960 endurance ratings and they are lower than any planar MLC drives I've seen endurance ratings for. They only reverted 3D to older process nodes because the endurance of 10nm class 3D NAND was not even marketable.

My understanding is IMFT isn't really a thing anymore, because Intel did not jointly buy into Micron's current generation of 3D NAND production. Micron fronted that node on its own and there's so far been no word if Intel will resume it's IMFT partnership for the next-generation of Micron NAND. 

CScottG wrote:

In essence Intel is running a very protective protocol for that drive, shutting-down writes LONG before the drive would fail. ALSO, it might be utterly dependent on the wear the SLC buffer is undergoing, not necessarily how degraded the vertical NAND has become.

To be fair to Intel, THG spamming 4K writes until the drive dies will blow the write amplification factor completely beyond normal usage scenarios, so I'd fully agree that 600p died way sooner than it should have. TR's own testing methods at least paused to allow drives recover and optimize the NAND every so often which is critical to minimize the write amplification factor.

That being said, the ~110TB failure is still close enough to the 140TB endurance rating that I would take the endurance rating at face value. And the point is moot because Intel locks the drive upon reaching the endurance rating anyway.

CScottG wrote:

(..they did note that the SLC buffer was "inconsistent" - my guess is that after a few days that buffer was in operation a LOT, and that as the algorithm advanced and the wear level detected (becoming more worn), it became increasingly "inconsistent" in an effort to prolong drive life.)

The SLC cache buffer is a funny thing. SLC NAND has literally an exponentially longer endurance than TLC NAND because of how the voltage situation works. So while the SLC portion will see an absurd number of writes, it also has an absurd amount of endurance. I have not seen any PC hardware sites analyze this equation in depth so I can't really say how it balances out, but my feeling is the SLC cache portion will still be reasonably close to endurance parity with the rest of a TLC drive.

Any test that only spams continuous writes without pause is going to effectively break SLC caching anyway, so any odd perf results they saw don't mean anything. Perf inconsistency is expected during the last 10% too.

Well, there's SLC and then there is SLC. The older stuff could take in a LOT more writes (block erasures were spec.ed at 100,000 PE's) - the cell size was larger and the cell walls were as well. Over time though SLC started getting smaller, and it could be that the latest generation is being used for this task: specifically something between 21 and 14 nm as opposed to the older 32 nm (or larger) NAND. Moreover, IF it is smaller NAND AND it get's heavy use, it could result in increased increased thermal degradation. In other words, my guess is that an anticipated 100,000 PE for the buffer load isn't anywhere close to being accurate, probably something closer to eMLC endurance (which is 10-20 percent of that 100,000 PE).

..anyway, it's just a guess.

It might also be that wear-algorithm for the buffer isn't as good as the wear-algorithm for the storage "partition". (..my thought is that it hasn't been in development as long, with only about 2-3 years of using SLC as a buffer for TLC, as opposed to almost a decade of wear-prioritized controller programming for a more typical SSD solution.)

840 pro (MLC) vs. 850 pro (3D MLC): (..probably the best endurance drives for their type of NAND in their respective consumer class.)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8239/upda ... d-die-size

still, it's only an estimation by the author.

The enterprise Samsung drives I've been buying are rated at 13 PB total writes (1.8 TB SM863). I think they're 3D, but I honestly didn't check or care. They're 1/6 the price of the Dell drives I was told to buy and are faster, more endurant, and did I mention 1/6 the price?

That's 3 drive writes a day for 5 years, btw.

..and did your employer say: "thanks, better equipment at a massive savings - your awesome, time for a salary raise!"

I'm betting not, it never seems to go that way.

nah.. that never happens. instead, if anything goes wrong you are liable because you didn't do what you were told.

CScottG wrote:

..and did your employer say: "thanks, better equipment at a massive savings - your awesome, time for a salary raise!"

I'm betting not, it never seems to go that way.

Actually, yes. I saved enough in purchasing to fully update the entire set of systems with money left over.

Somehow I have technically capable managers that understand the trade-offs.

Waco wrote:

CScottG wrote:

..and did your employer say: "thanks, better equipment at a massive savings - your awesome, time for a salary raise!"

I'm betting not, it never seems to go that way.

Actually, yes. I saved enough in purchasing to fully update the entire set of systems with money left over.

Somehow I have technically capable managers that understand the trade-offs.

Nice!

Check out the Intel pro 2500, it's quite a good one.