Which SSD for longevity ?

Dicehunter

Dicehunter

Dicehunter

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Looking at replacing my last HDD that I have used for music, family pictures, documents and game storage with an SSD that will last a long time.

The HDD I'm replacing is a WD Black 2TB that has been running flawlessly for the last 10 years but the clicks and clacks are a bit of an annoyance and its health report isn't looking clever.

So... which type of SSD would be best for longevity and by type I mean MLC, TLC or QLC ?
 
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Really depends on budget, though TLC is cheap in gen3x4 now. Can't say i'm an expect, but any half decent ones now are good enough for general use (non heavy writing), and come with 5yr warranties, along with gen 3 prices dropping off a cliff now. I just grabbed a WD black 1TB for £50 from OCuk just for video editing. It should last long enough. In 5yrs prices will be low enough to not worry at 2TB, and backing is wise whatever you have.
 
Dicehunter said:
So... which type of SSD would be best for longevity and by type I mean MLC, TLC or QLC ?
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Definitely not QLC, especially if it is external. Ideally I'd pick a TLC drive with DRAM, since MLC drives are hard to get hold of now.

I've tried to get a list of the rated P/E cycles for modern NAND (e.g. 176 layer), but I can't find one, so I'm not sure how the big manufacturers (Samsung, Intel/Hynix, Micron and WD/Kioxia) compare. You could try asking NewMaxx.

Dicehunter said:
Looking at replacing my last HDD that I have used for music, family pictures, documents and game storage with an SSD that will last a long time.
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If you're not refreshing the data very often then the endurance of the drive isn't that important, but I'd avoid unreliable controllers on low-end SATA drives, which are also likely to have bottom of the barrel NAND.

Whatever you buy, keep it backed up, because SSDs typically don't give much warning.
 
Ive just gone with the 4TB EVO 870 to replace my ageing archive drives. Not sure about endurance but i have an online backup and with the current £75 cashback it seemed a good deal.
 
Devious said:
Ive just gone with the 4TB EVO 870 to replace my ageing archive drives. Not sure about endurance but i have an online backup and with the current £75 cashback it seemed a good deal.
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Personally, I'd want more confirmation that the issue is definitely resolved before I buy another 870 Evo, but on paper they're superior drives to e.g. WD Blue SA510, which doesn't even have DRAM anymore.
 
If it's just for data storage then really it doesn't matter if it's MLC/TLC/QLC. You're not going to notice the difference for that use case scenario. If it was going to be an OS drive then sure, TLC all the way. It's being used for photos, music, documents etc, in no scenario is this use case ever going to show up the differences between the SSD types, so go for what has decent warranty and is within budget.

I have an 8TB Samsung QVO SATA SSD for this purpose, as well as a Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB. The Samsung acts as a synchronised backup from the Sabrent. You may as well get a 4TB SSD since they're so cheap now and never have to worry about storage again in the long run. It's going to be more wise to have the same brand SSDs so that you only need to use on utility to check all the drives from time to time, or firmware updates etc. Samsung Magician if all your drives are Samsung, for example.

Armageus said:
TLC Drive, and may also be worth manually overprovisioning it (i.e. by creating the partition smaller than the drive - e.g. if a 2TB drive then only use 1.6TB or so, to leave additional space for garbage collection/wear levelling)
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Not necessary, all SSDs have internal OP enabled by default which the user will never see anyway. Any manual OP creation is largely a waste of otherwise usable space.
 
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I hope you have some other form of backup as well - then though desirable the long term reliability of the SSD is a little less important.
 
Rroff said:
I hope you have some other form of backup as well - then though desirable the long term reliability of the SSD is a little less important.
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For now I got myself 4 x 256GB Kingston USB sticks for pretty cheap with the same family photos and important documents on each so at least I have a few backups of those.

As for backups of my music, Series etc... I'm debating doing what mrk did and get an 8TB Samsung drive for back up and then another 8TB Samsung drive as my main storage that I then backup every month or so to the 2nd 8TB as I have a LOT of music that's taken me years of collecting, Would suck to lose it.
 
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For ref the 8TB SATA Samsung is in a Ugreen USB 3.1 Type-C enclosure. It does the job really well tbh and also means I can then keep the backed up 8TB elsewhere for added peace of mind. If my 4090 12VHPWR connector burns the PC down then at least my backups are safe :cry:
 
mrk said:
Not necessary, all SSDs have internal OP enabled by default which the user will never see anyway. Any manual OP creation is largely a waste of otherwise usable space.
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Given how ssd tech is a race to the bottom now, don't count on internal overprovisioning.
Depends ultimately on how long you want the drive to last
 
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Out of the box without any manual OP they will all last far beyond the rest of the system, this has been the case for some years now too. Backblaze have also released data from their server farms showing that SSDs now outlast HDDs in busy environments like their storage infrastructure. I still have my old 970 Evo plus 1TB and it is on over 40TBW last I checked at 99% health remaining. That drive will continue to live on to the point where M.2 slots will be considered obsolete.

HDDs are largely pointless now unless you somehow have a need for 10TB+ drives etc.
 
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Armageus said:
TLC Drive, and may also be worth manually overprovisioning it (i.e. by creating the partition smaller than the drive - e.g. if a 2TB drive then only use 1.6TB or so, to leave additional space for garbage collection/wear levelling)
Click to expand...
Is there a general rule of thumb when it comes the amount you should leave for over provisioning?
 
Armageus said:
Given how ssd tech is a race to the bottom now, don't count on internal overprovisioning.
Depends ultimately on how long you want the drive to last
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It's honestly not going to be a limiting factor, I've yet to see a drive need it in modern times, and this will remain the case going forwards. All SSDs have decent internal OP, it's part of the generic manufacture of all drives these days. Maybe avoid aliexpress SSDs however... All these main vendor drives have controllers and NAND chips made by a handful of the same manufacturers, so utilise the same configurations.

I've also had confirmation from Sabrent engineers directly that SSDs these days don't need manual OP.

I will pay £20 to anyone who can prove internal OP on a modern SSD isn't enough.
 
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