TLC SSD == garbage?

[VirtualLarry]

Between the poor AT review of the BX200 drive, and the Newegg user reviews of the OCZ Trion 100 120GB SSD, I'm coming to the conclusion that TLC drives are to be avoided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228134

Edit: To clarify, I was mostly talking about planar TLC NAND. Drives using it just seem slow and unreliable. Though, the Sandisk Ultra II seems to get decent reviews.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Between the poor AT review of the BX200 drive, and the Newegg user reviews of the OCZ Trion 100 120GB SSD, I'm coming to the conclusion that TLC drives are to be avoided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228134

I have a BX200 in one of my PCs and it works great. And it was cheap!

The problem here seems to be that these low-end OCZ drives themselves aren't that great and are prone to failure.

 

[WT]

OCZ drives prone to failure !???!! Wow, now that is something I haven't heard before !



I kid .... I own a Vertex 3 and a Vertex 4

 

[Arachnotronic]

OCZ drives prone to failure !???!! Wow, now that is something I haven't heard before !



I kid .... I own a Vertex 3 and a Vertex 4

I thought OCZ cleaned up their act once Toshiba got ahold of the assets? Maybe their high-end drives are good but this particular drive sucks

 

[davidthemaster3]

Isn't the Samsung 850 Evo TLC? It's also a pretty good drive and pretty cheap with a deal.

 

[redzo]

I'm using garbage for about 2 years and I'm quite happy with it(840 EVO).

Toshiba, Micron, OCZ are simply too late. Their TLC drives would have won against samsung's 840 EVO maybe, but today they are being put against samsung's 850 EVO.
It is quite difficult to recommend a cheap SSD today unless you directly compare it first with the 850 EVO. The Samsung 850 EVO drive sits back and relaxes in very comfortable place as far as price and performance are concerned.

 

[Coup27]

Well you come to that conclusion and the rest of the people who want to take advantage of drives like the 850 can continue to do so.

 

[WT]

I thought OCZ cleaned up their act once Toshiba got ahold of the assets? Maybe their high-end drives are good but this particular drive sucks

I will agree with this statement, as my comment was directed at the original OCZ and their numerous issues with the earlier Vertex 2 and Agility 2 series drives. Then again, every manufacturer can produce a turd every now and then.

 

[rsutoratosu]

you can skip toshiba.. they are in financial danger.. who knows whats going to happen to them...

ssd got even cheaper.. samsung is pretty good..

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Between the poor AT review of the BX200 drive, and the Newegg user reviews of the OCZ Trion 100 120GB SSD, I'm coming to the conclusion that TLC drives are to be avoided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228134

Planar TLC is sluggish. The 840 EVO made up for it in a couple different ways. The 850 EVO uses V-NAND, which should be better in most cases.

 

[Elixer]

you can skip toshiba.. they are in financial danger.. who knows whats going to happen to them...

ssd got even cheaper.. samsung is pretty good..

Yeah, playing with the books is never good.

That said, there is nothing wrong with their SSD products these days, they have been stable in that area, I haven't heard or read about mass issues that affect their SSDs.

So, they got caught cooking the books, and looks like they will have to do mass layoffs and selloffs to regain ground.
We will see what happens with them.

While I still prefer MLC, I do have a few TLC units testing, and those have been working adequately.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Between the poor AT review of the BX200 drive, and the Newegg user reviews of the OCZ Trion 100 120GB SSD, I'm coming to the conclusion that TLC drives are to be avoided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228134

SSDs performance is determined by more than just the NAND lithography. This is an obviously hyperbolic claim. The controller is REALLY important, the degree of parallelism for number of packages is also important. You can't sensibly just announce that all tlc is garbage.

For example, the sandisk ultra ii uses tlc. It performs just fine. And while the bx200 is somewhat underwhelming in things like the destroyer benchmarks, but it feels as fast as my 840 non-pro in similar capacity for basic OS stuff.

 

[arandomguy]

What I would be concerned about is the issue with charge decay as exhibited by the 840 EVO as it relates to TLC especially with the smaller process sizes.

The main issue with TLC is really business related. Capacity to price gains need to translate more to the consumer side and then the appeal will be there.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

What I would be concerned about is the issue with charge decay as exhibited by the 840 EVO as it relates to TLC especially with the smaller process sizes.

V-NAND is made on a much larger process size and should be (?) immune to that.

The main issue with TLC is really business related. Capacity to price gains need to translate more to the consumer side and then the appeal will be there.

Amen.

 

[arandomguy]

V-NAND is made on a much larger process size and should be (?) immune to that.

Only the 850 EVO has moved to V-Nand and using the larger process size. The rest of the available TLC drives though will still be planar using small process sizes, even Samsung will be launching a new line like this.

The other thing that in theory may help the 950 EVO is it uses charge traps as opposed to floating metal gates.

But this is really just theory crafting and other factors are likely in play as well such as how the controller is set to handle writes (tighter tolerances versus performance?). The 840 EVO issues didn't really widely come up until they were in the wild for awhile and it was also a rather popular drive so would have a higher incidence and report rate for issues. At the end decay will still be present, this is the nature of SSDs (even a large SLC drive will still decay), but whether or not it's an issue in practice is another matter.

Actually related to this I'm wondering if this is something that should be looked at in regards to how fast controllers are and writes. I'm wondering how much performance optimizations come at the expense of tolerances that may exacerbate this issue or others related to data retention.

 

[Cerb]

Between the poor AT review of the BX200 drive, and the Newegg user reviews of the OCZ Trion 100 120GB SSD, I'm coming to the conclusion that TLC drives are to be avoided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228134

Meanwhile, the Sandisk and Samsung ones seem to do just fine.

I'd get MLC any day over TLC, unless the price was right (it's usually not), but TLC can be alright.

 

[Topweasel]

Between the poor AT review of the BX200 drive, and the Newegg user reviews of the OCZ Trion 100 120GB SSD, I'm coming to the conclusion that TLC drives are to be avoided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228134

I think the BX200 suffers more from a lackluster controller than TLC pain. But the reality is probably that TLC doesn't save enough money or allow enough extra storage to be worth it's use. On top of that 3d nand is basically going to make all of the need for TLC to go away. Which its sad that Samsung continued to use and designed their v-nand around TLC. On one had 40nm means that TLC worries aren't a problem. On the other hand V-nand means they didn't need the extra storage per die that they did with planar chips. Mainly TLC 3d nand exists so that MLC 3d nand devices could be sold with more margin.

 

[Leyawiin]

I own five different SATA III drives (PNY, Crucial, Seagate, Adata and Samsung 850 Evo). All have different controllers. I can't tell a damned bit of difference between them in typical everyday usage. As far as OCZ goes, I bought two SATA II drives (one Bigfoot, the other Sandforce) and they're still chugging along years later in a PC I gave to a family member. After seven drives and not one failure and no great difference performance-wise in typical usage I've learned to take professional and user reviews with a big grain of salt.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I think the BX200 suffers more from a lackluster controller than TLC pain.

I agree.

But the reality is probably that TLC doesn't save enough money or allow enough extra storage to be worth it's use.

I don't know how you've come to this conclusion. There are a number of TLC drives that perform quite well. The SanDisk Ultra II, and 850 Evo...heck even the older 840-non-pros perform well!

 

[meloz]

Not all TLC SSDs are equal.

My Samsung 850 Evo has been flawless.

 

[Shmee]

Some are quite good. Beware Toshiba though. I cant think of a single product they have that is better than mediocre.

 

[arandomguy]

I don't know how you've come to this conclusion. There are a number of TLC drives that perform quite well. The SanDisk Ultra II, and 850 Evo...heck even the older 840-non-pros perform well!

It isn't just about performance. The question you should be asking is how much of the supposed to price/capacity benefits are be translated to the consumer side? Or are the producers the ones getting the majority of the benefit in higher margins?

Also even with the publicity of the issue there still seems to be an almost head in the sand mentality with regards to actual data longevity with SSDs especially with both TLC and small process sizes. If Samsung's move to intro the 750 is any indication planar TLC at small sizes will still continue as it is likely V-NAND may not be addressing the economics side for the producer. And eventually even with V-NAND it is like we will have to move back to smaller processes as opposed to just ever increasing stack sizes.

What makes this worse is OEM sourcing will be very price sensitive and SSD type will not be advertised nor choosable. Not to mention post purchase support as currently indicated is rather worse (weren't there complaints that OEM 840/EVO variants not receiving fixes?). Anyone going to be happy if they find out their $2000+ Surface Pro or similar device is using a budget oriented TLC drive D: I think there was some unhappiness with high capacity iphone 6's and TLC NAND?

 

[beginner99]

I'd get MLC any day over TLC, unless the price was right (it's usually not), but TLC can be alright.

Exactly. Crucial MX100/200 are usually so cheap going with a TLC drive does not make much sense.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Some are quite good. Beware Toshiba though. I cant think of a single product they have that is better than mediocre.

I am using one in my laptop and it's been great for the past 2 years. Even without any firmware updates. Heh.

 

[PliotronX]

Holy cow, I was unaware that a., Crucial launched the BX200 and b., they over neutered it to make the MX series more attractive. There isn't much of a price differential between BX and MX to warrant that kind of performance deficit. I'll have to cease recommending Crucial BX drives once the 100's are phased out.

Back on topic though, the theoretical life of TLC frightens me but there must be some crazy wear leveling logic in their controllers because I have not seen any reports of SHTF with any of them. As always, having good backups is a rule that applies to any SSD or HDD.