PLC (5-bits per cell written) Based SSDs will be arriving to the market, but only after 2025

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/14/2021 09:02 AM | source: | 14 comment(s)

We have serious doubts about the technology, as even QLC is already a bit too much for most people (pardon the pun). For SSDs SLC is one bit written oper NAND flash cell, MLC is two bits, TLS is three-bits, QLC 4 bits per cell. There are plans to introduce PLC SSDs, writing a staggering 5 bits per cell0.

Now Western Digital has mentioned in an interview that it will not release SSDs with PLC memory until 2025 at the earliest, but that does mean the company is actively developing it. The company has been working with Kioxia (previously Toshiba) since at least 2019 on this type of NAND flash writing. Each cell needs to store 32 voltage states for this, while triple-level cell SSDs, for example, require only eight.

WD's chief of technology and strategy, Siva Sivaram, believes the technology won't hit the market until the second half of this decade, and only for some very specific segments in the market.

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Silva
Senior Member

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Joined: 2013-06-04

#5920394 Posted on: 06/14/2021 11:26 AM

Good for cheap devices that don't see much writing cycles like smartphones, tablets and most cheap laptops.
For consumer SSDs I wouldn't buy one, at least as an early adopter.
At the moment TLC is a good day to day candidate, QLC is good for storage application.
The benefits going PLC don't look that great, but progress needs to start somewhere!

Vmhasegawa
Member

Posts: 42
Joined: 2015-09-10

#5920465 Posted on: 06/14/2021 03:18 PM

I remember seeing some QLC NVMe SSD's, most use some sort of SLC cache or something similar for raw speed, then when that writing is done the writing goes to QLC (slower obviously) so you won't really "feel" the difference as long as you don't write over what fits in that cache. TLC seems to be the "best" of both worlds for now, pricing and performance wise, but hey, cheaper SSD's are always welcome as long as we still have the faster stuff if we really need it.

LimitbreakOr
Senior Member

Posts: 420
Joined: 2015-04-02

#5920667 Posted on: 06/15/2021 06:58 AM

Right now this is not encouraging, the Samsung QVO is more expensive than the faster, more durable tlc 870 EVO. Hopefully with more companies going for higher bit per cell ssd, the prices will eventually compete with the traditional HHD for storage.

SbbKbb
Junior Member

Posts: 2
Joined: 2019-09-03

#5920790 Posted on: 06/15/2021 06:01 PM

Ahahaha. Please our dear consumers,can you bend some more over? My rule is no more than 2 (1 NVME + 1 SSD 1TB) and Primo cache with 1 and 2 level of caching on SSD.This gives me 1 to 20 places for cached HDDs with SSD performance and an arm and a leg to spare. Oh, and BDW when SSD dies a can recover the data myself. How you recover the data when the SSD is DEAD?

tsunami231
Senior Member

Posts: 12797
Joined: 2003-05-24

#5920823 Posted on: 06/15/2021 07:40 PM

dont this mean less write life?

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