Lexar NQ780 4 TB

[Chrispy_]

impressive or not 2tb should be well under $100 at this point and 4tb should no more then $150 and even those prices high, then all NAND make purposely kick price high sorta like certian Nvidia jacket man

NAND is actually a fiercely competitive market, with even the Chinese muscling in to keep the Japanese, Korean and Western foundries in check.

The reason cost/TB isn't scaling the way it used to for mechanical drives is because we've hit a wall with bit density. Each jump to add an extra bit per cell comes with diminishing capacity returns and growing drawbacks to controller complexity, performance, power consumption, and endurance. QLC is borderline, with few manufacturers offering appealing QLC drives at a decent discount over TLC drives, and PLC being likely useless until some unforeseen technological breakthrough happens.

What's happening now is TLC and QLC is getting stacked into more and more layers the same way hard drives used to get stacked into more and more platters. Each layer costs money to make, so stacking them doesn't drive down costs the way HDD areal density advancements used to.

 

[Fluke]

QLC is borderline, with few manufacturers offering appealing QLC drives at a decent discount over TLC drives

In what parallel universe?
I'd gladly have a high-density 16TB QLC SSD as a write-once Steam drive. But where is that unicorn hiding?
Hell, even the 2TB and 4TB offerings cost basically the same as TLC.

I've set M.2 + PCIe 4.0 as minimum (because nobody needs a stinkin' SATA SSD):
Best QLC: Acer FA200 2TB - 101€
Best TLC: Verbatim Vi5000 2TB - 94€
Where is the discount?

QLC just doesn't work. It delivers neither capacity nor price.

 

[Chrispy_]

In what parallel universe?
I'd gladly have a high-density 16TB QLC SSD as a write-once Steam drive. But where is that unicorn hiding?
Hell, even the 2TB and 4TB offerings cost basically the same as TLC.

QLC doesn't give you the capacity increase you're thinking of. It doesn't even translate into larger NAND packages, it just means the NAND can use fewer layers to achieve the needed "standard size" per package, saving the manufacturer money without offering the end-user any additional capacity.

With many vendors still choosing to sell drives in the 500GB-2TB range only, there's simply not the demand, nor the economies of scale to offer much compelling stuff beyond 2TB. The fact that cost/TB starts to go back up again beyond 2TB really drives that fact home.

Sure, in theory, QLC drives built at the same price as TLC drives ought to have more capacity, but the market is capacity-dominated. Would a 2.66TB QLC SSD outsell a 2TB TLC drive at the same price? Clearly the manufacturers don't think so, and they'd rather just obfuscate the NAND type, hoping to hide the performance/power/endurance downsides behind a vague spec sheet and fluff-heavy info page while they charge you almost the exact same money as TLC drives while pocketing the cost savings that the inferior QLC NAND provides them.

When in doubt about which direction things are going in, remember that capitalism and greed usually prevail.

 

[Luckz]

As the IG5236 is kind of good at being on junk SSDs that experience way more failures than you'd hope for, how's this pan out w/o the DRAM? Will it break just as much, or kind of less?

 

[Fluke]

Pr0 TiP before buying an SSD: Go to the manufacturer's website.
Do they offer a toolbox to update your SSD?
If no -> run.

 

[Scour]

I have SSDs with Tools from the manufacturers but with most SSDs I never get updates

 

[lexluthermiester]

Pr0 TiP before buying an SSD: Go to the manufacturer's website.
Do they offer a toolbox to update your SSD?
If no -> run.

This is not good advice because...

I have SSDs with Tools from the manufacturers but with most SSDs I never get updates

...this is a thing.

Seriously with that?

 

[Fluke]

What

I have SSDs with Tools from the manufacturers but with most SSDs I never get updates

What did you expect? Daily alpha version firmware flashes?
If an SSD has been on the market for several years, of course there aren't any updates anymore.

BUT:
If a manufacturer offers no toolbox, it's a clear sign they are not interested in supporting your purchase, as they can't be bothered to provide the tools necessary.

In short:
It's not a hint what to buy, more of a hint what not to buy.

As always, there's one exception to the rule: Corsair.
Their toolbox looks and works like it was made for Windows 3.1 (and I wish I was kidding). Their SSDs might be passable, but after witnessing that software abomination, I quickly returned ze hardware.

 

[lexluthermiester]

In short:
It's not a hint what to buy, more of a hint what not to buy.

But your suggestion was not true or wise. At all.

 

[Scour]

What did you expect? Daily alpha version firmware flashes?

I wrote NEVER