Question Does anyone make a 16TB consumer 2.5" SSD?

[steveoat]

Does anyone make a 16TB consumer 2.5" SSD? I did some research and all I found was one by Teamgroup that was almost $3000. Are there alternative?

 

[Tech Junky]

Largest I've seen is 8TB.

I think the stall is the cost and consumers not wanting to pay that much. It's going to take some time for a market correction when it comes to prices.

 

[aigomorla]

I have 4 x 4TB SANDISK EXTREME's in Software Raid-0 using windows 10 Storage Space.
That is probably the cheapest solution you are going to get in getting 16TB, also will be much faster then a single 16TB as having 3 or more tends to max the I/O for SATA 6G.

You also theoretically get 4x the write endurance as writes is spread across all 4 SSD's in Raid-0.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I have 4 x 4TB SANDISK EXTREME's in Software Raid-0 using windows 10 Storage Space.

Did you bench it in Crystal Disk Mark? Can you share the screenshot please?

 

[aigomorla]

Did you bench it in Crystal Disk Mark? Can you share the screenshot please?

Windows 10 Storage Space Settings:


1GB:


8GB:


I believe Sata 6G max is around 600MB/s

Differences Between SATA I, SATA II and SATA III

Find detailed answers to your support questions for your Western Digital, SanDisk, WD_BLACK, or WD storage product.

support-en.wd.com

SATA III (revision 3.x) interface, formally known as SATA 6Gb/s, is a third generation SATA interface running at 6.0Gb/s. The bandwidth throughput, which is supported by the interface, is up to 600MB/s

So yeah, im beyond the complete saturation point in SATA 6G interface with 4 SSD's in R0.
If i want faster i need to go via nVME or use a SAS 12G dedicated controller card.

As you can also see my Array is purely used for game storage. (Steam + Origin + Epic Games + EA Play)
So i do not really care about redundancy. If i lose data its nothing to cry over as i can just redownload the game after i fixed the broken array.
But i would NEVER recommend using a R0 array on important Data like pictures, or things you don't have backup access to.
I have lost a LOT of data on Failed R0 arrays, that i learned my lesson many times over to just not do it anymore with sensitive data.

 

[fralexandr]

OWC sells one for $2500

OWC 16.0TB Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G 2.5-inch 7mm... at MacSales.com

S4DMEP7E16T 16.0TB OWC Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G 2.5-inch 7mm SATA 6.0Gb/s Solid-State Drive. Performance and reliability for demanding environments.

eshop.macsales.com

newegg has a mushkin for $2400 out of stock though.

A weird 15TB nvme/m2 pcie4.0 2.5" SSD for $1306...

Supermicro (Samsung) 15TB U.2 PM9A3 NVMe PCIe 4.0 TLC Internal Solid State Drive (HDS-SUN0-MZQL15THBLAA7)

Samsung 15TB U.2 7mm NVMe PCIe 4.0 (1DWPD) SSD 5200 MBps Read / 4000 MBps Write Best-in-Class Energy Efficiency Supermicro Certified

store.supermicro.com

 

[q52]

A weird 15TB nvme/m2 pcie4.0 2.5" SSD for $1306...

Supermicro (Samsung) 15TB U.2 PM9A3 NVMe PCIe 4.0 TLC Internal Solid State Drive (HDS-SUN0-MZQL15THBLAA7)

Samsung 15TB U.2 7mm NVMe PCIe 4.0 (1DWPD) SSD 5200 MBps Read / 4000 MBps Write Best-in-Class Energy Efficiency Supermicro Certified

store.supermicro.com

That Samsung 16TB drive is not M.2, its U.2 which is commonly used in servers and data centers.

If you dig around eBay you can find plenty of listings for 16TB 2.5" SSD's that have the U.2 interface (not SATA)

These drives typically need either a U.2 -> M.2 adapter, or a PCIe card adapter in order to run them in a typical desktop PC, since consumer systems do not usually have U.2 ports

I have a Intel U.2 SSD in my desktop using the U.2 -> M.2 adapter and it works perfectly. But since its not a SATA interface, you will not be able to stick it in something like a standard external SATA drive enclosure. There also does not seem to exist a U.2 -> SATA adapter, since U.2 is generally using NVMe.

 

[Tech Junky]

So yeah, im beyond the complete saturation point in SATA 6G interface with 4 SSD's in R0.
If i want faster i need to go via nVME or use a SAS 12G dedicated controller card.

It really depends on a few other things.

As it sits right now MSFT / R0 probably isnt' going to be the fastest anyway with how Windows handles files.

The next thing that's potentially slowing things down is moving data through the DMI and competing with other devices passing data at the same time.

A HBA would bypass this issue with the DMI bottleneck if you put it into a CPU based slot. Though you could go controller based as well but, then that becomes a bottleneck as well sometimes depending on how may drives you connect to it.

I run a R10 on Linux though w/ 5 spinners 4+1 hot spare and get ~450MB/s out of them. I didn't test them in R0 but, they should be able to hit ~1125MB/s if the theory carries based on the disk controller throughput. I did at one point play with the idea of bouncing them to a PCIE card instead of the the onboard ports but, never got the card working properly and sent it back to CN. I've thought about going HBA as well but, don't really have the need as I'm taking the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach. I break things plenty though when I get bored and think of things to tinker with.

Now, if you're using AMD CPU based systems there are some interesting options that are a lot cheaper than Intel due to being able to bifurcate the slots w/o a PLX controller being needed. You can get a card for ~$100 for 4 X NVME drives and split the top X16 into x4x4x4x4 and run them at full speed vs the Intel options that cost ~$600 for the card with the PLX on it and then bottleneck things to 3-6GB/s vs full speed on AMD. The issue with this for most is their precious GPU wants to take the top slot for CPU direct bandwidth though in most cases putting it in the 2nd PCIE slot would be just fine for bandwidth.

 

[gdansk]

PCIEx4 to U.2 adapter board + enterprise 15-16TB SSD is an option too.
One of my consumer X570 motherboards has a U.2 connector. So depending on your board you may not even need an adapter.

 

[q52]

PCIEx4 to U.2 adapter board + enterprise 15-16TB SSD is an option too.
One of my consumer X570 motherboards has a U.2 connector. So depending on your board you may not even need an adapter.

Yea it depends on what you are trying to plug the drives into and what you desired device config looks like

I have been looking for 16TB+ SATA SSD's for a while now as a drop-in replacement for HDD's in my NAS/DAS file server, since I only have SATA available

but if you are adding storage directly to a system with PCIe slots and M.2 slots or even native U.2 ports you are gonna have a lot more options for drives since eBay is packed with data center cast-offs

 

[aigomorla]

16TB U.2 Drive => 2000-4000 dollars.

4 x 4TB SATA6G drives -> 4 x 240 = 960 dollars.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-NAND-Internal-560MB/dp/B09FRRWVWX/ref=sr_1_8?crid=1PJAM1H4PKA7X&keywords=4tb+SSD&qid=1677792830&sprefix=4tb+ssd%2Caps%2C166&sr=8-8&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840

So yeah... if you do not need the absolute threshold of nVME speed, its really not even a contest in terms of price.

 

[q52]

It's not about speed, obviously if you're using SATA, it's about the expansion capabilities of your system. 4x4TB SATA drives requires four available SATA ports, and then a software layer to make it into a single volume .

 

[aigomorla]

It's not about speed, obviously if you're using SATA, it's about the expansion capabilities of your system. 4x4TB SATA drives requires four available SATA ports, and then a software layer to make it into a single volume .

If 4000 dollars is within your budget, there are better ways to do it.
HEDT with a bifurcation card or a PLX embeded controller.
It would probably come out almost equal with a better platform to boot.

 

[Tech Junky]

4000 dollars is within your budget

Some people throw money at problems as a hobby.

 

[aigomorla]

Some people throw money at problems as a hobby.

Yeah but thats more like using it to wipe your butt after going number 2.
If you really want to go down this road, then it make more sense to go about it via the HEDT route, with ample pci-e lanes and a bifuri card.
It would just be silly to get a single 16TB nVME, where the one part alone costs several times more then your entire system.

 

[Tech Junky]

@aigomorla

Common sense isn't a given....

 

[BFG10K]

I still remember certain forum members telling us HDDs will go extinct because SSDs are now "price parity", LMAO.

$220.

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

 

[igor_kavinski]

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

Oh no!

18TB Seagate Exos X18 is only slightly higher at my local Amazon.

I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOO tempted!

Please God, HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!