Small SLC SSD boot drive

[Wooden Law - Black]

Then hard drive is just much better perf/dollar device for that. What you shell out for 1TB QLC e-waste, can buy you 3-4TB hard drive.

But loading times are longer…

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

QLC is still unproven technology regarding its effective lifetime barring controller issues and such. Might very well be that HDD will last significantly longer, and loading times shouldn't be THAT awful when you have games and OS on separate drives.

 

[The red spirit]

But loading times are longer…

Dowloading times are always worse

 

[lexluthermiester]

But loading times are longer…

That's the trade off you make, slower speed for MUCH great storage space.

 

[chrcoluk]

I recall a trick whereby one formats a hard drive to a smaller space so the heads did not have to move so far.

Indeed.

I have a story to tell.

I used to use a 36 gig raptor (which by the way works fine today, very high quality built drives).
I then decided I needed more space, so the choice was the new 72gig raptor, or a WD black 640 gig (this also still works). In those days WD blacks were very well built drives as well inheriting a few features from raptors.

I ultimately decided to buy the 640 gig, I made a 40 gig partition at the start, which basically meant for the OS it was assured the use of the fastest part of the disk which gave it access times only slightly worse than my old raptor, and throughput in excess. Of course the performance on rest of disk wasnt as good but I treated it as a fast OS disk, and a bonus slower extra 600 gig disk tacked on. Great decision.

It was also a well known tweak to make a dedicated partition for a swap file, to ensure it wasnt competing for sectors with anything else (no fragmentation) and assurance to be on faster part of disk.

 

[Shrek]

I like things that are thought through like this.

 

[jallenlabs]

I'm using a 256GB silicon power Gen3 x4 NVME, pretty fast, too
View attachment 250257
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silicon-Power-256GB-Gen3x4-Internal/dp/B07P8KXX4B

For reference, my 3 year old Optanes (Ive only owned them six months, 2 were new, 2 used.
Then my WD SN750blk.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

For reference, my 3 year old Optanes (Ive only owned them six months, 2 were new, 2 used.
Then my WD SN750blk.View attachment 250335View attachment 250336

My 1TB WD SN850's (got 2) are near 7000MB/s SEQ1M

 

[jallenlabs]

My 1TB WD SN850's (got 2) are near 7000MB/s SEQ1M

Im sure. Got my eye on a sn850 or a kingston Fury. How are the Random 4k reads and writes? Cuz its not like I sit around all day and move files from drive to drive. Though it is fun to see how fast GBs go on the new drives, I must say. Wish I could get a new gen Optane as those are burn burners!

 

[ThrashZone]

I like things that are thought through like this.

Hi,
Yep budget be damned

 

[chrcoluk]

Hi,
Yep budget be damned

Both drives were similarly priced.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

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'm having a hard time here.

The response you've provided is a wonderful encapsulation. There are true SLC drive options...that are astronomically expensive. The problem is that if you're willing to pay for a true SLC drive, then it's functionally going to cost as much as a decently sized TLC drive.


My other problem is the fundamental conceit. Catastrophic failures happen in both mechanical and flash memory. Right now, the MTBF of most TLC flash is entirely in-line with that of HDDs (in consumer usage scenarios). As such, why is this even a reasonable discussion in a home PC? If this was a data center I'd say there's a reason to ask...but even if the PC is used as an always on home server it'd spend most of its time off or idle.



I do offer criticism of Intel and QLC though. It doesn't provide either the performance or the costing structure to justify a "small" drive. Whatever you personally believe, the process is designed to produce volumes of storage cheap...and seems to be at the root of why the OP is fascinated with SLC. Of course, it's all relative.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'm having a hard time here.

Are you?

The response you've provided is a wonderful encapsulation.

An interesting postulation.

My other problem is the fundamental conceit.

Veiled insults will get you nothing except maybe the same returned in kind.

Catastrophic failures happen in both mechanical and flash memory.

Oh? What an earth-shattering revelation THAT is...

Right now, the MTBF of most TLC flash is entirely in-line with that of HDDs (in consumer usage scenarios). As such, why is this even a reasonable discussion in a home PC?

Hmm. Seems like you've missed some context, and if you had not started out with insults I would be all to happy to help you understand, but alas..

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Im sure. Got my eye on a sn850 or a kingston Fury. How are the Random 4k reads and writes? Cuz its not like I sit around all day and move files from drive to drive. Though it is fun to see how fast GBs go on the new drives, I must say. Wish I could get a new gen Optane as those are burn burners!

This is both the SN850's As you can see, being empty or 60% used does not really impact speeds.