Small SLC SSD boot drive

[Shrek]

Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives

• SLC (single level)
• MLC (dual level)
• TLC (tri level)
• QLC (quad level)
• PLC (five level)

are there any small SLC SSD drives that might be suited for booting and so could take the stress of memory paging? I am guessing 64-128GB

 

[Voluman]

I don't have experience with qlc/plc, but for a normal daily usage you are good to go with any kind/form of ssd.
If you plan to write the drive fully, on daily basis than probably stick with slc with big spare area, but other than this you should no worries.

 

[Shrek]

Any recommendations for a smallish SLC SSD?

 

[eidairaman1]

Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives

• SLC (single level)
• MLC (dual level)
• TLC (tri level)
• QLC (quad level)
• PLC (five level)

are there any small SLC SSD drives that might be suited for booting and so could take the stress of memory paging? I am guessing 64-128GB

256 is lowest I would go today

 

[Shrek]

My intent was just the OS; the other files would go on a 2TB hard drive.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Most modern drives operate in psudo SLC mode by disabling 2 or 3 of the layers in order to achieve near SLC performance for a limited duration.

Considering this plus the difference between the boot time of a SATA ssd and high end nvme is negligible, I don't think you should bother.

 

[Shrek]

It is wear that concerns me, not speed or cost.

 

[eidairaman1]

My intent was just the OS; the other files would go on a 2TB hard drive.

Thats what I use for the OS only. I use the velocitaptor for everything else.

Check my Sig Rig. It's big enough for future OS upgrades/service packs

840 Pro

 

[Wirko]

If you're worried about write endurance, which you need not be, the datacenter Optane may be the one for you.

 

[Frick]

It is wear that concerns me, not speed or cost.

What do you do with the computer?

 

[Shrek]

Email, Web surfing, games, TeX, CAD, Mathematica.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Unless you are chia mining, endurance is not going to get an issue for 99.9% of desktop users. Consider a Samsung "pro" drive if you want maximum reliability.

 

[newtekie1]

It is wear that concerns me, not speed or cost.

A TLC drive will not wear out in the life of the computer you put it in.

 

[Nike_486DX]

optane can be considered as slc (technically its got different type of memory, but longevty-wise its ~ slc), currently using 32gig as os drive.

A TLC drive will not wear out in the life of the computer you put it in.

i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

I guess your solution is to find an ssd with high TBW like samsung. Generally most decent m2 ssd have TBW pass the 1000tbw range nowadays.

 

[newtekie1]

i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.

Failures doesn't mean they wore out. SSDs fail for many reasons, they almost never wear out.

 

[DR4G00N]

I've used a 120GB Toshiba MLC drive as an OS drive for like 8 years and so far it has about 27TB of total writes and still works perfect, so durability should be the least of your concerns.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Given that life, speed (and price) decreases with multi-level solid state drives

• SLC (single level)
• MLC (dual level)
• TLC (tri level)
• QLC (quad level)
• PLC (five level)

are there any small SLC SSD drives that might be suited for booting and so could take the stress of memory paging? I am guessing 64-128GB

What I'd do is move the pagefile to a separate drive. Taking your idea: Install Windows to your 2TB HDD and use a small SSD for the pagefile, hibernation file and temp folders. Something like the following from SanDisk is designed for this kind of thing;

SanDisk (SDSSDRC032GG26) for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for SanDisk (SDSSDRC032GG26) at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

But you don't need that kind of drive and if want to keep things inexpensive you could go with something like the following;

M-Factors 2.5 Inch Internal SSD 32GB - 128GB MLC NAND SATA III Up To 550MB/s | eBay

Toshiba MLC NAND Flash. Moreover, the 2.5" SATA SSD enables hot-swapping when removing, replacing, or upgrading flash disks while also providing low power consumption in comparison to traditional hard drives.

www.ebay.com

You really don't need anything larger than 32GB for pagefile and temp folder/file type storage.

Install Windows to the 2TB drive, making sure all other drives are unplugged. This insures Windows doesn't allocate or automatically configure the drives for anything.
After the Windows install completes and you have all drivers installed, you go into the management console and change the small drive letter to something like W: for example. Then you goto system properties and set the pagefile and temp folders to that drive letter.

This is just one school of thought. It's worked for me for over a decade.

 

[chrcoluk]

pSLC I think still gives an endurance benefit as lower voltages are used to write the data vs TLC/QLC mode. Not the same as native SLC but is better than native MLC.

The only small SLC drive you going to find is probably a very old model, which wont have 3d NAND, advanced firmware etc.

 

[Wooden Law - Black]

You can't find SSDs with SLC flash in production anymore, this because this type flash is considered obsolete, expensive and "useless" since the market trend is following flash with high density. According to Micron's and SpecTek's SLC NAND Flash Part Catalog there are still many SLC ICs in production, some even 128/256Gb, but as I already said, SSD manufacturers don't buy them anymore.

Do you want a SSD with high endurance? Well, Team Group T-Create Expert (Micron TLC flash rated for 10K P/E cycles), Enmotus FuzeDrive P200 (Micron QLC flash operating in SLC mode, so the endurance increase to 30K P/E cycles), PNY LX3030 (the same as the Enmotus FuzeDrive P200), Samsung 970 PRO (Samsung MLC flash) and all the other SSDs that use PCM flash (for example 3D XPoint).

If you really don't want to buy anything I said you have another alternative, which is buy a very old SSD with SLC flash: MemoRight GT. Does this make sense? No.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

optane can be considered as slc (technically its got different type of memory, but longevty-wise its ~ slc), currently using 32gig as os drive.


i had experienced 2 tlc and 1 mlc failures in my rig, so cant really relate. (wd green 240gb, Kingston A400 and Crucial BX300). Neither of the 3 lasted more than 2 years.

All 3 are poor quality dramless drives. The nand tech isn't what caused them to fail most likely.

Not saying all of these apply to your particular drives but in general cheap drives commonly use low bin NAND which might not last as long. Often cheap drives also have low end controllers that are not the best at wear leveling, or the controllers themselves just don't last very long. Additionally a lack of a dram cache can also cause a lot of extra wear and tear to the NAND, reducing lifespan.

The Phision S11 controller used in the a400 for example has a know failure issue and is poor at wear leveling in general. I had an A400 die and the Kingston tech did a failure analysis and told me the controller had failed, unsurprisingly.

I'd reccomend the OP to look beyond SLC and simply look for a quality TLC drive with a dram cache.

Example:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-870-evo-1tb-sata-2-5-internal-solid-state-drive/6447127.p?

Oh and avoid Intel SSDs altogether. Their nand is pure garbage. I had a 600p with dram tlc NVME fail with just 4tbw.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'd reccomend the OP to look beyond SLC and simply look for a quality TLC drive with a dram cache.

That's not a solution inline with the OP's request. The OP has an existing 2TB drive they want to use and they want a small SSD to do the heavy lifting for OS files. A full size SSD is not the solution they asked for and it may not be in the cards as far a price is concerned.

Oh and avoid Intel SSDs altogether. Their nand is pure garbage.

Subjective opinion that does not hold up to merit! I use Intel SSD's frequently and they fail no more or less than any of the other big-name brands.

I had a 600p with dram tlc NVME fail with just 4tbw.

That was one drive. It happens but is the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Wooden Law - Black]

Oh and avoid Intel SSDs altogether. Their nand is pure garbage. I had a 600p with dram tlc NVME fail with just 4tbw.

This is an opinion that doesn’t make sense. Intel has in production many types and models of NAND, your 600p had 32L TLC flash, which is very old and EOL. Intel has in production 64L, 96L, 144L and TLC and QLC flash. You probably just had a bad sample, and for this reason is wrong to say “avoid Intel SSDs”.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

That's not a solution inline with the OP's request. The OP has an existing 2TB drive they want to use and they want a small SSD to do the heavy lifting for OS files. A full size SSD is not the solution they asked for and it may not be in the cards as far a price is concerned.


Subjective opinion that does not hold up to merit! I use Intel SSD's frequently and they fail no more or less than any of the other big-name brands.

That was one drive. It happens but is the exception rather than the rule.

I've owned probably 50 ssds over the past couple of years, enough for a not insignificant sample size.

I have had just 4 fail, and 3 of them were Intel drives... All failures under normal usage and with only a tiny fraction of their TBW rating. They weren't the same models either, nor same nand type.

The 600p was made in very late 2018, so no it's not that old.

I wouldn't touch an Intel drive again with a 39 and a half foot pole.

There's no real large surveys to prove one way or another, but from my experience i can't reccomend them at all.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I've owned probably 50 ssds over the past couple of years, enough for a not insignificant sample size.

I have had just 4 fail, and 3 of them were Intel drives... All failures under normal usage and with only a tiny fraction of their TBW rating. They weren't the same models either, nor same nand type.

The 600p was made in 2018, so no it's not that old.

I wouldn't touch an Intel drive again with a 39 and a half foot pole.

There's no real large surveys to prove one way or another, but from my experience i can't reccomend them at all.

Regardless, the durability of Intel SSD's is not the question the OP posted. Let's stay focused on their request.