3D TLC < MLC < TLC? Need advice

[sally_91]

Is this right and is there such a thing as 3D MLC?

When something says 3D NAND does that always mean 3D TLC?

I compared 4 different SSDs at Newegg all at $140 or under and I'm not sure which one to get.

 

[jossrik]

Well... In general it goes SLC > MLC > TLC. There's a lot more that goes into a good SSD though. You can get fast TLC that has more than enough endurance for what you're going to use it for or slow SLC that has a bad warranty. List the drives and we can better tell you which one if any are better or worse. Not sure on the 3d part.

 

[sally_91]

Well... In general it goes SLC > MLC > TLC. There's a lot more that goes into a good SSD though. You can get fast TLC that has more than enough endurance for what you're going to use it for or slow SLC that has a bad warranty. List the drives and we can better tell you which one if any are better or worse. Not sure on the 3d part.

Thanks

I linked the Newegg comparison in my post

aw bummer, one of the SSDs rose in price

 

[sally_91]

Does anyone know the answers to the questions on the 1st post?


Should I just compare these 4 categories:

Max Sequential Read eg. Up to 530 MBps
Max Sequential Write eg. Up to 510 MBps
4KB Random Read eg. Up to 92,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write eg. Up to 83,000 IOPS


and not care if it's 3D, or TLC, or MLC?

 

[J_E_D_70]

Modern drives none of that really matters unless you’re scraping the bottom. The one to get is:
https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16820147373?cm_re=Samsung_850_evo-_-20-147-373-_-Product

Best drives out there with the possible exception of crucial mx500 and it only comes in 1TB capacity for now.

Edit: They do have lower capacity MX500s so this is also a great wat to go:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820156173

 

[sally_91]

Modern drives none of that really matters unless you’re scraping the bottom. The one to get is:
https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16820147373?cm_re=Samsung_850_evo-_-20-147-373-_-Product

Best drives out there with the possible exception of crucial mx500 and it only comes in 1TB capacity for now.

Edit: They do have lower capacity MX500s so this is also a great wat to go:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820156173

Thanks!

Can you give a reason as to why those things don't matter and why the MX500 is the best choice?

By scraping the bottom, do you mean when the storage is down to the last gigs?


What is the general hierarchy of SSDs(SLC, MLC, TLC, and it's 3D variants)?
Is there ever a time when you have a TLC that is better performing and longer lasting than an MLC?

 

[USAFRet]

"scraping the bottom" means off brand crappy drives, from unknown manufacturers.

Don't stress about MLC vs TLC or 3D. Any reasonable SSD from a known brand will become obsolete due to size before it "wears out".

My eldest SSD is coming up on 6 years old. Near 24/7 power on time. 44k+ hours. Kingston HyperX 3k 120GB
It is reporting 99% life left.

Samsung 850 EVO, Crucial MX300 or MX500 would be my choices today.
My main system has a 500GB 850 EVO. My wife's system is a 250GB 850 EVO.

 

[martinch]

I've got a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO in my work laptop, which has been in it for about 2 years. In that time I've been fairly unforgiving with it (daily hibernates, many many many application compiles with Visual Studio, running SQL Server with 10GB+ DBs which get completely refreshed, running out of memory and ending up paging, etc), and I've managed to put 16TB of writes on it. Based on Samsung's warranty info (150TBW), it's about 11% of the way through its' life.

It's based on 3D TLC NAND, and can't say I've ever noticed it miss a beat performance-wise.

 

[J_E_D_70]

They don’t matter in that as long as you have a quality drive the differences in iops and transfer rates can only be detected in benchmarks. You’re not going to say, “wow, this only feels like 95,000 iops, wish I had 98k.”

And the “last longer” thing - as stated above you’ll have replaced the entire rig before it goes out unless you intentionally torture it to death.

The MX500 is the first drive to challenge the 850 Evo in performance.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12165/the-crucial-mx500-1tb-ssd-review