Discussion Transcend 220s and 240s with unrealistically high TBW

[mettall]

Hello, I was looking around for ssd replacement on my laptop and I have stumbled on this Transcend MTE240s and MTE220s SSDs. They looks nice but the TBW (terrabytes writter) values seems to be so high that it looks unrealistic in comparison to other brands and models.

Let's try to summarize this values and compare them with the legendary Samsung Pro series:

	500GB	1TB	2TB
Transcend MTE220s	1,100 TBW (for 512GB)	2,200 TBW	4,400 TBW
Transcend MTE240s	850 TBW (for 500 GB)	1,700 TBW	------
Samsung 990 Pro	-----	600 TBW	1200 TBW
Samsung 980 Pro	300 TBW	600 TBW	1200 TBW
Samsung 970 Pro	600 TBW	1200 TBW	-------
WD Blue SN550	300 TB	600 TB	-------

Both Transcend and Samsung 990/980 Pro are using 3D-NAND flash types based on TLC. Only Samsung 970 Pro is using MLC, but those are hard to find in the stores anyway.

2,200 TWB! Mother of durability! That is more than triple of the Samsungs current ssds.
My current SSD is 128GB based on MLC type of flash with estimated 300 TBW. And for more than 5 years of usage i have written ~150 TB.

The reading and writing speeds of the Transdcend SSDs are nothing special in comparison to Samsung, but the TBW metrics are really important for the durability of the SSD.
Do you think that this values are real/realistic or are they made up by the manufacturer in some kind of synthetic test?
Does anyone have experience with these models and does anyone have problems with them?

Thank you!

 

[kanewolf]

Hello, I was looking around for ssd replacement on my laptop and I have stumbled on this Transcend MTE240s and MTE220s SSDs. They looks nice but the TBW (terrabytes writter) values seems to be so high that it looks unrealistic in comparison to other brands and models.

Let's try to summarize this values and compare them with the legendary Samsung Pro series:

	500GB	1TB	2TB
Transcend MTE220s	1,100 TBW (for 512GB)	2,200 TBW	4,400 TBW
Transcend MTE240s	850 TBW (for 500 GB)	1,700 TBW	------
Samsung 990 Pro	-----	600 TBW	1200 TBW
Samsung 980 Pro	300 TBW	600 TBW	1200 TBW
Samsung 970 Pro	600 TBW	1200 TBW	-------
WD Blue SN550	300 TB	600 TB	-------

Both Transcend and Samsung 990/980 Pro are using 3D-NAND flash types based on TLC. Only Samsung 970 Pro is using MLC, but those are hard to find in the stores anyway.

2,200 TWB! Mother of durability! That is more than triple of the Samsungs current ssds.
My current SSD is 128GB based on MLC type of flash with estimated 300 TBW. And for more than 5 years of usage i have written ~150 TB.

The reading and writing speeds of the Transdcend SSDs are nothing special in comparison to Samsung, but the TBW metrics are really important for the durability of the SSD.
Do you think that this values are real/realistic or are they made up by the manufacturer in some kind of synthetic test?
Does anyone have experience with these models and does anyone have problems with them?

Thank you!

Those numbers are just for warranty. So, if they entice a few buyers, with an inflated number, they win. You have admitted your usage pattern was 150TBW in the 5 year warranty period. So the TBW rating should be a non-issue for all the drives.

 

[mettall]

Thank you for the answer. So there really is a catch with these numbers...
In comparison with other drives, the 300 TBW on my current 128GB ssd seems to be inflated too. I think i should consider moving to a new drive rather sooner than later

 

[kanewolf]

Thank you for the answer. So there really is a catch with these numbers...
In comparison with other drives, the 300 TBW on my current 128GB ssd seems to be inflated too. I think i should consider moving to a new drive rather sooner than later

You have probably exhausted the warranty period (years), so the TBW number is no longer applicable. I would replace a 128GB just because that is too small to be convenient.
You have to be prepared for EVERY disk to fail at any time. Backups are not optional just because the disk is new.

 

[mettall]

Yes, you are correct, the warranty is long time gone, and I should be thankfull for the service of the drive and also for every new power-on cycle of this ssd And thank you for the reminder for the backups. I'm postponing the backups quite often...

Here is some SMART data from a software by the manufacturer:

[0x01], Read Error Rate, 0
[0x05], Reallocated Sectors Count, 0
[0x09], Power-On Hour Count, 1242
[0x0C], Power Cycle Count, 4596
[0xA0], Uncorrectable sectors count when read/write, 0
[0xA1], Number of Valid Spare Blocks, 45
[0xA3], Number of Initial Invalid Blocks, 24
[0xA4], Total Erase Count, 177252
[0xA5], Maximum Erase Count, 221
[0xA6], Minimum Erase Count, 119
[0xA7], Average Erase Count, 174
[0xA8], Max Erase Count of Spec, 3000
[0xA9], Remain Life (percentage), 95
[0xAF], Program fail count in worst die, 0
[0xB0], Erase fail count in worst die, 0
[0xB1], Total Wear Level Count, 466
[0xB2], Runtime Invalid Block Count, 0
[0xB5], Total Program Fail Count, 0
[0xB6], Total Erase Fail Count, 0
[0xC0], Power-Off Retract Count, 231
[0xC2], Controlled Temperature, 30
[0xC3], Hardware ECC Recovered, 105892
[0xC4], Reallocation Event Count, 0
[0xC5], Current Pending Sector Count, 0
[0xC6], Uncorrectable Error Count Off-Line, 0
[0xC7], Ultra DMA CRC Error Count, 3
[0xE8], Available Reserved Space, 100
[0xF1], Total LBA Written (each write unit=32MB), 324061
[0xF2], Total LBA Read (each read unit=32MB), 250717
[0xF5], Flash Write Sector Count, 709008

I think it looks good for now...

 

[fzabkar]

Back in 2019, Transcend was specifying 800TBW (Max.) presumably for their 1TB version, TS1TMTE220S:

http://www.vmodtech.com/main/wp-con...ssd-220s-512gb-review/2019-03-07_21-52-32.jpg

https://web.archive.org/web/20190322192207/www.transcend-info.com/products/No-991

Today it's a lot higher:

https://www.transcend-info.com/products/No-991

There is no mention of TBW in the brochure, though:

http://www.transcend-info.com/Files/EDM/EN_MTE110S-220S_PS_1901.pdf

The brochure mentions SLC-caching, but there is no mention of it in the specs on Transcend's product page.

 

[Zerk2012]

Yes, you are correct, the warranty is long time gone, and I should be thankfull for the service of the drive and also for every new power-on cycle of this ssd And thank you for the reminder for the backups. I'm postponing the backups quite often...

Here is some SMART data from a software by the manufacturer:

[0x01], Read Error Rate, 0
[0x05], Reallocated Sectors Count, 0
[0x09], Power-On Hour Count, 1242
[0x0C], Power Cycle Count, 4596
[0xA0], Uncorrectable sectors count when read/write, 0
[0xA1], Number of Valid Spare Blocks, 45
[0xA3], Number of Initial Invalid Blocks, 24
[0xA4], Total Erase Count, 177252
[0xA5], Maximum Erase Count, 221
[0xA6], Minimum Erase Count, 119
[0xA7], Average Erase Count, 174
[0xA8], Max Erase Count of Spec, 3000
[0xA9], Remain Life (percentage), 95
[0xAF], Program fail count in worst die, 0
[0xB0], Erase fail count in worst die, 0
[0xB1], Total Wear Level Count, 466
[0xB2], Runtime Invalid Block Count, 0
[0xB5], Total Program Fail Count, 0
[0xB6], Total Erase Fail Count, 0
[0xC0], Power-Off Retract Count, 231
[0xC2], Controlled Temperature, 30
[0xC3], Hardware ECC Recovered, 105892
[0xC4], Reallocation Event Count, 0
[0xC5], Current Pending Sector Count, 0
[0xC6], Uncorrectable Error Count Off-Line, 0
[0xC7], Ultra DMA CRC Error Count, 3
[0xE8], Available Reserved Space, 100
[0xF1], Total LBA Written (each write unit=32MB), 324061
[0xF2], Total LBA Read (each read unit=32MB), 250717
[0xF5], Flash Write Sector Count, 709008

I think it looks good for now...

None of that really applies to anything.
It might last 10 more years it could stop working 5 minutes from now.

 

[USAFRet]

2,200 or 4,400 TBW is irrelevant.
You, your children, and probably your grandchildren will never get even a little bit close to that number in regular consumer use.

Your current stated use of 150TB in 5 years. 30TB per year.
Extrapolated to 2,200TBW....you'd reach that number in 73 years. 2095.

 

[fzabkar]

It would appear that the total data written to the SSD is only 10TB.

Total Data Written = "Total LBA Written" x 32MB = 324061 x 32MB = 10.4 TB​

SMART is reporting that the endurance of the NAND flash is 3000 P/E cycles. That's a lot higher than today's NAND.

Max Erase Count of Spec = 3000​

Average Erase Count = 174​

Remain Life (percentage) = 95%​

The remaining life is being calculated on the basis of the P/E cycles.

Life Used (Percentage) = (Average Erase Count) / (Max Erase Count of Spec) x 100 = 174 / 3000 x 100 = 5.8%​

Remaining Life = 100 - 5.8 = 94.2%​

 

[USAFRet]

I think it looks good for now...

Use it until it dies.
Replace when it does.

That date of death may be 10 years from now, or 10 minutes from now.

 

[mettall]

Thanks folks.
It looks like the oldie disk is still worthy
I think I'll keep it for now.

@fzabkar The 800 TBW seems to be much more realistic in comparison to the new values of 2200. It's nice to find this information. Probably this is the 'correct' value for this metric. The other option would be that Transcend made up some magic with the software or the hardware but that is not that likely to be true.

 

[USAFRet]

The other option would be that Transcend made up some magic

Marketing magic.

2,200TBW is so far into the future that no one will ever challenge them on it.

 

[kanewolf]

Marketing magic.

2,200TBW is so far into the future that no one will ever challenge them on it.

And you have to hit that number in 5 years for it to be relevant anyway ...