SSDs - State of the Product?

Stereodude

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The Samsung 840 drive in the endurance test is a TLC drive and I was under the impression that all TLC was only rated for 1,000 PE cycles.

It did ridiculously well and has made me seriously consider the new 1TB TLC drives from Samsung.
The TLC equipped Samsung died in their test a long time ago. The one that's still running does not use TLC flash.
 

Stereodude

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Samsung must believe their new 850 pro will last. They have a 10 year warranty.
They still only rated it for 150TB regardless of drive size. How does a 1TB model have the same endurance as a 128gB model? Are they putting better chips in the 128gB allowing it to handle more P/E cycles? :scratch:

Granted, 150TB is more than any other consumer grade drive that I'm aware of, but it's a far cry from the enterprise models. Intel's older 710 model came in 3 flavors, 100, 200, and 300gB. Their rated endurance is 500TB, 1000TB and 1500TB respectively.
 

time

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There are two Samsung 840 SSD in the review : one EVO and one Pro.

No, the TLC model in the test is a straight 840 - the EVO is a more recent version of that with slightly less reserve blocks (diverted for use as a cache). I'm well aware of which model is which and was referring explicitly to the 840 with TLC.

The Pro version is still working after 2PTBW, but the EVO crapped out at ~700TBW IIRC.

The non-Pro 840 made it past 900TB, which means it outlasted the Intel 335 (700TB) and one of the Kingston HyperX (728TB). The important point is that these numbers are far, far in excess of any manufacturer claims. It certainly appears that you can trust those claims and that any of these drives - even the TLC - are more than adequate for desktop use.

I strongly considers the Samsung 850 Pro, but I wouldn't buy an EVO model, even though it would probably last very long for my typical usage pattern.

I couldn't find any evidence that the 850 Pro is any more reliable than the 840 Evo. Far more suitable for heavy writes in a server, certainly, although the 845DC Pro you mentioned is the model actually rated for that purpose.
 

time

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They still only rated it for 150TB regardless of drive size. How does a 1TB model have the same endurance as a 128gB model? Are they putting better chips in the 128gB allowing it to handle more P/E cycles? :scratch:

As explained on Anandtech, Samsung doesn't want customers selecting the 850 Pro instead of a 845DC variant for data center use, so will not warrant the drive beyond 150TB of host writes. Samsung makes pretty big endurance claims for the DC Pro line - 14,600TB for the 800GB model, but they also use 40000 PE cycle 3D V-NAND instead of the 6000 cycle class in the 850 Pro. In practise, the 1TB 850 Pro should be good for 2700TB or 1.5 DWPD, which I think agrees with a figure someone calculated from the SMART stats.
 

LunarMist

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2000TB is enough for me. I'm still waiting for the 2TB SSDs though. Why are there none yet? The 1TB SSDs are often less than four hundred now.
 

time

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Utter tosh? Hard to take the content seriously when it includes gems like this:

"The file systems metadata keeps track of fragments and can only keep track of so many. Defragmentation in cases like this is not only useful, but absolutely needed."

Really?
 

LunarMist

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Utter tosh? Hard to take the content seriously when it includes gems like this:

"The file systems metadata keeps track of fragments and can only keep track of so many. Defragmentation in cases like this is not only useful, but absolutely needed."

Really?

"Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author."

I see MS has the highest standards. :rolleyes: It seems that the guy with the neck brace is really the source as he had to correct the author.
I disable the defragmentation in 7. F*ck Windows 8. :frusty:
The SSD providers built in garbage collection, etc. for a reason. Intel and Samsung at least have a utility to optimize the SSDs.
 

Stereodude

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I have a small claim judgment for $300, basically the MSRP of that drive when it was new. I'm still trying to figure out how to collect on it.
If you want some lulz, you could send them an invoice and see if they pay it. If that fails sick a collections agency on them. You won't get much of the money, but it could be good for some laughs. Or, as loath as I am to suggest it, you could take to social media in an attempt to embarrass them by using some of their hash tags.
 

CougTek

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I couldn't find any evidence that the 850 Pro is any more reliable than the 840 Evo.
The 850 Pro uses 3D V-NAND while the 840 EVO uses TLC NAND. Here's your evidence. The 3D V-NAND flash chips are rated for 6000 program/erase cycles while the TLC NAND chips are only good for ~1000 P/E cycles. Even if they would use the same controller, the 850 Pro would outlast the 840 EVO just by the type of flash chips it uses.
 

LunarMist

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The 850 Pro uses 3D V-NAND while the 840 EVO uses TLC NAND. Here's your evidence. The 3D V-NAND flash chips are rated for 6000 program/erase cycles while the TLC NAND chips are only good for ~1000 P/E cycles. Even if they would use the same controller, the 850 Pro would outlast the 840 EVO just by the type of flash chips it uses.

The 3D V-NAND is comprised of MLC, correct?
 

time

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The 850 Pro uses 3D V-NAND while the 840 EVO uses TLC NAND. Here's your evidence. The 3D V-NAND flash chips are rated for 6000 program/erase cycles while the TLC NAND chips are only good for ~1000 P/E cycles. Even if they would use the same controller, the 850 Pro would outlast the 840 EVO just by the type of flash chips it uses.

You're confusing reliability with write endurance. The 1TB 840 EVO TLC is apparently still good for 250GB per day, every day for 5 years, which translates to 450TB over the life of the drive. That's writes, not reads, so the endurance is still good enough for >99.99% of desktops. I said that there didn't appear to be any difference in reliability, so blindly specifying the 850 Pro for desktops is just a waste of money.

All I seem to be doing in this thread is repeating myself. :-?
 

time

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I'm more concerned with Mercutio's travails with Samsung. Samsung has quickly become the 800lb gorilla in the SSD market.

Let me be clear, I'm not infected with blind faith in Samsung products. Across the board, I've found their consumer products to be distinctly average in terms of reliability. Every member of my family currently has one of their phones, but historically there have been a few writeoffs too. At present, there is not even an accredited Samsung phone repairer in my state. Even their hard disk drives have had a higher than average failure rate in my experience, only surpassed by Seagate. I wouldn't touch one of their household appliances because of their service record in that sector.

And yet, I just bought 3 Samsung IPS monitors because they were easily the best buy in the 1920x1200 format. They have no defects, have a great picture and have given no problems. :dunno:
 

Mercutio

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I'm more concerned with Mercutio's travails with Samsung. Samsung has quickly become the 800lb gorilla in the SSD market.

Let me be clear, I'm not infected with blind faith in Samsung products. Across the board, I've found their consumer products to be distinctly average in terms of reliability.

Some of my students do TV/Appliance repair. Most of them have a pretty negative impression of Samsung as far as customer service, after-sale and repair-ability. Apparently it's practically impossible to get Samsung to honor the warranty on flat panel TVs that aren't still available in stores, for example. At least in the case of phones and screens, it's more a matter that their hardware is really good for as long as it works rather than having any great expectation of life-changing experience.

But their hard drives were fantastic. I'd take an old HD103* over any currently manufactured 1TB consumer drive.
 

Bozo

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We have a Samsung plasma TV. a few months after we bought it, it developed spots and streaks on the screen. I called Samsung and within a week a repairman showed up with a new screen.
The repair person was a sub contractor for Samsung. Maybe the poor service is a result of the sub contractors rather than Samsung.

I also bought the extended warranty from the store. After the one year factory warranty runs out, they just refund the purchase price of the TV for the next five years. Cost: $120.00

That makes sense. Any electronic device is obsolete after a year anyway.
 

LunarMist

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A few years ago some of you were predicting the SSDs would take over, but it's not really happening in the 3.5" size. Now we have 8 and 10TB HDDs, but still only 1TB SSDs. It's ridiculous. :(
 

Mercutio

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It's still going to happen. HDDs will move to a near-line archival storage option, but Seagate and WD will do everything in their power to extract every last dollar of consumer demand for traditional magnetic disks before that happens. Tape is still the only viable option for real backup though.
 

LunarMist

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It's still going to happen. HDDs will move to a near-line archival storage option, but Seagate and WD will do everything in their power to extract every last dollar of consumer demand for traditional magnetic disks before that happens. Tape is still the only viable option for real backup though.

Six years ago we had the first decent SSDs from Intel and since then capacity growth has not exactly dramatically gained on HDDs. When will SSD capacity be equal, 5-7 years from now?
 

Santilli

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So, you have technology that will eventually reduce it's own demand. If SSD's continue to last as long as the ones being tested, why bother buying anything else, and you won't have to buy one for 5-10 years?
A constant increase in capacity does give an incentive, along with dropping prices, to purchase another drive. I currently see no reason to replace my two X-25's, that continue to run, or the old Vertex 2 in my XP machine. They are so fast, that I'm not sure I would perceive the difference with even a 4 time increase in performance.

DD and I have had that conversation concerning the PCI based SSD's.

It's great that SSD's are around because that is forcing the HD Dictators to offer something that SSD's don't yet, capacity, and lower prices, and they may well have to increase reliability, as SSD's become more affordable as backups.

It's a bit of a win-win for the consumer.
 

LunarMist

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If a 1TB drive is ~$400, then why can't someone make a 4TB drive for $1500 or so? I understand that there may be engineering challenges in the 2.5" 7mm form factor powered by the 5V supply, but space and power should not be such issues in the 3.5"x1" desktop drives.
 

sdbardwick

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If a 1TB drive is ~$400, then why can't someone make a 4TB drive for $1500 or so? I understand that there may be engineering challenges in the 2.5" 7mm form factor powered by the 5V supply, but space and power should not be such issues in the 3.5"x1" desktop drives.
IIRC, the holdup is the number of dies/flash chips the SSD (Sandforce, Toshiba, Indilinx, etc) controllers support, so we are currently tied to flash density increases.
 

LunarMist

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IIRC, the holdup is the number of dies/flash chips the SSD (Sandforce, Toshiba, Indilinx, etc) controllers support, so we are currently tied to flash density increases.

Really? Can't they make "wider" controllers with more going down in parallel?
 

sdbardwick

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I'm sure wider controllers will happen eventually. Until NVM Express becomes common, there is no impetus for mass-market oriented chipmakers to do so; current designs can saturate the SATA3 interface. So for the most part (with a couple exceptions) we end up with wonky RAID0>PCIe setups.
 

Stereodude

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I currently see no reason to replace my two X-25's, that continue to run, or the old Vertex 2 in my XP machine. They are so fast, that I'm not sure I would perceive the difference with even a 4 time increase in performance.
I think you would notice the performance increase of a top tier SSD like a Samsung 850 Pro or Sandisk Extreme Pro vs. your Intel.
 

LunarMist

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I suspect he's not using anything that's storage limited, especially if those are the X25-M with their relatively slow speed and low capacity.
 

Santilli

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Forgot to mention they are a long time, Raid 0, running around 500 mb/sec reads. Write pretty well, also.

GS
 

Handruin

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So, you have technology that will eventually reduce it's own demand. If SSD's continue to last as long as the ones being tested, why bother buying anything else, and you won't have to buy one for 5-10 years?
A constant increase in capacity does give an incentive, along with dropping prices, to purchase another drive. I currently see no reason to replace my two X-25's, that continue to run, or the old Vertex 2 in my XP machine. They are so fast, that I'm not sure I would perceive the difference with even a 4 time increase in performance.

DD and I have had that conversation concerning the PCI based SSD's.

It's great that SSD's are around because that is forcing the HD Dictators to offer something that SSD's don't yet, capacity, and lower prices, and they may well have to increase reliability, as SSD's become more affordable as backups.

It's a bit of a win-win for the consumer.

Service length doesn't negate the increased demand for more storage. I'm outgrowing my 500GB boot SSD after a year. In addition to that, performance increases are beneficial over time.

Forgot to mention they are a long time, Raid 0, running around 500 mb/sec reads. Write pretty well, also.

GS

You only get that 500MB/sec because you have to consume two SATA 2 ports to get past the bus limitations. The max STR reads aren't really want matters. Show us your 4K random IOPS. Also that drive is pretty small in capacity.
 

jtr1962

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A few years ago some of you were predicting the SSDs would take over, but it's not really happening in the 3.5" size. Now we have 8 and 10TB HDDs, but still only 1TB SSDs. It's ridiculous. :(
I was one of those people and I stand by my words. With V-NAND now on a roadmap to increase in density enough to make ~10 TB 2.5" SSDs practical by 2017 or so at around what 1TB SSDs cost now, I think we're seeing the last few years of mechanical hard drives. There's not too many tricks left in the hat to increase capacity. And SSDs are pretty much already mainstream in systems requiring only a relatively small boot drive. A few years ago that wasn't the case. Now you can get a 250GB SSD for $100 or thereabouts, more or less what you would pay for a mechanical disk. The mechanical disk at that price point might be 1 or 2 TB, but some users just will never need that much storage. That's the real issue here. Once SSDs became large enough to suit most non-power users at a price point more or less around where low-end mechanical disks are, it was the beginning of the end for spinning disk storage.

New technology never displaces old suddenly. We're seeing it now with LEDs gradually replacing incandescents first, and later CFLs and other discharge lamps.

Service length doesn't negate the increased demand for more storage. I'm outgrowing my 500GB boot SSD after a year. In addition to that, performance increases are beneficial over time.



You only get that 500MB/sec because you have to consume two SATA 2 ports to get past the bus limitations. The max STR reads aren't really want matters. Show us your 4K random IOPS. Also that drive is pretty small in capacity.
And noisy as heck. Whatever the advantages of X25s over slower spinning disks, SSDs can wipe the floor with them and are silent to boot.
 

Santilli

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Not to mention that mechanical drives are going to have to become MUCH more reliable to justify the possibility of lost data.
Once SSD's are viable for large volume storage, it would be idiotic not to use them for backups.
 

Handruin

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Not to mention that mechanical drives are going to have to become MUCH more reliable to justify the possibility of lost data.
Once SSD's are viable for large volume storage, it would be idiotic not to use them for backups.

I find that logic backwards. I wouldn't put my backups on tier 1 storage unless they were the same cost per GB as HDDs.
 

LunarMist

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Not to mention that mechanical drives are going to have to become MUCH more reliable to justify the possibility of lost data.
Once SSD's are viable for large volume storage, it would be idiotic not to use them for backups.

:rofl: How many decades is that?
 

Stereodude

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Not to mention that mechanical drives are going to have to become MUCH more reliable to justify the possibility of lost data.
Once SSD's are viable for large volume storage, it would be idiotic not to use them for backups.
Yes, because using a device that has a technological limitation where the charge slowly leaks off the gate of the flash cell and has a lifetime rating in years as a long term backup seems like a good idea. :skepo:
 

snowhiker

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Digital storage of any physical media: CD/DVDs/BD, MHD, SSDs, USB sticks, memory cards, tape, etc, has a limited storage life. Either the media degrades or the reader no longer works.

If you have "digital information" you want to keep secure and error free for years/decades to come, you only need to do one thing. Have the means and desire to continually transfer your "digital information" from your current storage medium to the next one. Keeping several copies of your "digital information" in separate physical locations and on different media.

Of course what I just stated above is obvious to everybody here.

So how long do you go between full data transfers to your next storage medium? That depends on your current storage medium(s) and how much risk you are willing to accept before performing said transfers.

Question: What storage medium would last longer a MHD or SSD? Assuming both were unplugged, wrapped in anti-static bags and stored at appropriate temps and relative humidity?
 

Handruin

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Digital storage of any physical media: CD/DVDs/BD, MHD, SSDs, USB sticks, memory cards, tape, etc, has a limited storage life. Either the media degrades or the reader no longer works.

If you have "digital information" you want to keep secure and error free for years/decades to come, you only need to do one thing. Have the means and desire to continually transfer your "digital information" from your current storage medium to the next one. Keeping several copies of your "digital information" in separate physical locations and on different media.

Of course what I just stated above is obvious to everybody here.

So how long do you go between full data transfers to your next storage medium? That depends on your current storage medium(s) and how much risk you are willing to accept before performing said transfers.

Question: What storage medium would last longer a MHD or SSD? Assuming both were unplugged, wrapped in anti-static bags and stored at appropriate temps and relative humidity?

I would recommend adding one addition piece to the strategy and it's a protection from bitrot. Simply storing your digital files on a device (HDD or SSD) and migrating it every few years to the next latest and greatest isn't 100% perfect. Even if the files transfer correctly it's possible for a bit to flip somewhere down the road and you may never know. That occasion when a single bit flips causing rot in your favorite last-remaining picture of your deceased great grandmother has now ruined the image. You could restore from backup, but what if this happened a long time ago? A technology like ZFS can assist in providing checksums on your data and offer periodic scrubbing to identify and possibly correct these issues. This is only one example but it illustrates a point that this should be considered for longer term storage archival or your important files.
 

snowhiker

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ZFS is a file system.

What about something similar to Parchive for individual files? I remember when I used usenet, PAR2 files were the shit and were great for recovering corrupted files. As I recall the PAR2 parity files could be adjusted to allow for more parity information to be saved to enable a file to be recovered even if large portions of the file where missing.

I don't have many, but I do have some files that I'd like to be protected from bit rot.

I see now that there are three things needed to protect "digital information" and allow it to be accessed/read years from now: 1) Continually copy data onto the next "new" storage technology. 2) Ensure that data remains error free and does not suffer from bit-rot. And 3) Verifying that future programs, file viewers, audio/video players, etc, etc can understand the current file/data format and convert to the next "new" file format as needed. H.264 --> H.xxx --> H.yyy --> etc, etc.

Anything else missing?
 

sechs

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Now you can get a 250GB SSD for $100 or thereabouts, more or less what you would pay for a mechanical disk. The mechanical disk at that price point might be 1 or 2 TB, but some users just will never need that much storage. That's the real issue here. Once SSDs became large enough to suit most non-power users at a price point more or less around where low-end mechanical disks are, it was the beginning of the end for spinning disk storage.
One also needs to keep in mind that more and more data is being kept in the cloud and not locally. People need less and less local storage.

We're weirdos for needing multiple disks in a desktop computer.
 

jtr1962

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One also needs to keep in mind that more and more data is being kept in the cloud and not locally. People need less and less local storage.

We're weirdos for needing multiple disks in a desktop computer.
I'm probably only a semi-weirdo by the standards of the people on this site in that I only have 3 disks and 2.75 TB of local storage on my machine. That's a 2 TB mechanical disk, and 240 and 500 GB SSDs.

I suspect the trend towards keeping data only on the cloud might be short-lived. Once one of these sites suffers a major data loss people will see the value in also having their important data on physical media in their possession.
 
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