Samsung Announces QLC SSDs up-to 4 TB
Samsung has begun mass-producing 2.5-inch SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) SSD for consumers, the new SSDs are based on QLC V-NAND flash, a technology that can store 4-bit data in one cell. The product launch is scheduled for the second half of 2018.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry’s first 4-bit (QLC, quad-level cell) 4-terabyte (TB) SATA solid-state drive (SSD) for consumers. Based on 1-terabit (Tb)* V-NAND with outstanding performance equivalent to the company’s 3-bit design, Samsung’s QLC SSD is expected to bring a new level of efficiency to consumer SSDs.
“Samsung’s new 4-bit SATA SSD will herald a massive move to terabyte-SSDs for consumers,” said Jaesoo Han, executive vice president of memory sales & marketing at Samsung Electronics. “As we expand our lineup across consumer segments and to the enterprise, 4-bit terabyte-SSD products will rapidly spread throughout the entire market.”
With its new 1Tb 4-bit V-NAND chip, Samsung will be able to efficiently produce a 128GB memory card for smartphones that will lead the charge toward higher capacities for high-performance memory storage. Typically, as data stored within a memory cell increases from three bits to four, the chip capacity per unit area would rise and the electrical charge (used to determine information from a sensor) would decrease by as much as 50 percent, making it considerably more difficult to maintain a device’s desired performance.
However, Samsung’s 4-bit 4TB QLC SATA SSD maintains its performance levels at the same level as a 3-bit SSD, by using a 3-bit SSD controller and TurboWrite technology, while increasing drive capacity through the use of 32 chips, all based on 64-layer fourth-generation 1Tb V-NAND. The 4-bit QLC SSD enables a sequential read speed of 540 MB/s and a sequential write speed of 520 MB/s, and comes with a three-year warranty for any guru. Samsung plans to introduce several 4-bit consumer SSDs later this year with 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities in the widely used 2.5-inch form factor. Since introducing the 32-gigabyte (GB) 1-bit SSD in 2006, which ushered in the PC SSD era, to today’s 4TB 4-bit SSD, Samsung continues to drive new thresholds for each multi-bit generation.
In addition, the company expects to provide M.2 NVMe SSDs for the enterprise this year and begin mass production of 4-bit fifth-generation V-NAND. This will considerably expand its SSD lineup to meet the growing demand for faster, more reliable performance across a wide span of applications, such as next-generation data centers, enterprise servers, and enterprise storage.
Year | Bit | Nodes | Chip Capacity | Drive Capacity |
---|---|---|---|---|
2006 | 1-bit SLC (single-level cell) | 70nm-class | 4Gb | 32GB |
2010 | 2-bit MLC (multi-level cell) | 30nm-class | 32Gb | 512GB |
2012 | 3-bit TLC (triple-level cell) | 20nm-class | 64Gb | 500GB |
2018 | 4-bit QLC (quad-level cell) | 4 th -gen V-NAND | 1Tb | 4 TB |
* 1Tb (128GB) x 32 = 4TB (4,096GB)
** Samsung’s mass production history of SSDs in bits per cell
New 4TB QLC SSD features performance levels on par with 3-bit SATA SSDs. Offers 540MB/s read speed, 520MB/s write speed and 3-year warranty period.
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Senior Member
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Well, I have almost 4TB total of SSD space in my primary home PC. I am set for a while and that does not even count the 2 x 1TB Hard drives I have installed or the 2TB HD I have sitting in front of me, unused.
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My drive is MLC so 10000 cycles. If QLC is 1000, I think 1/10 is correct.
I agree QLC should be great for libraries, but I bought an SSD for the access time and read/write speed, not to be idle all the time. For high density I can't afford SSD, so I use them for performance. I'm sure TLC is enough for me in the future, I'm still not sure about QLC.
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Posts: 392
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My drive is MLC so 10000 cycles. If QLC is 1000, I think 1/10 is correct.
I agree QLC should be great for libraries, but I bought an SSD for the access time and read/write speed, not to be idle all the time. For high density I can't afford SSD, so I use them for performance. I'm sure TLC is enough for me in the future, I'm still not sure about QLC.
A QLC NAND drive would make a lot of sense if combined with some sort of persistent cache (like Optane) onboard. The QLC part could keep the price down and keep the performance reasonable for infrequently accessed data while the persistent cache could handle the heavy lifting. Having the cache onboard also simplifies things and allows the drive to work on any platform and on any NVMe OS.
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oh ok i was confused i thought you where comparing tlc to Qlc life span not mlc to Qlc my bad !
Also i do not suggest media keeping on an ssd ... i mean is kind of silly i think a normall hdd can deliver no problem even 8k ((not raw but compressed )) video , the reason i say for steam library is because you get the reduced loading times , although to be honest my old ssd(intel 330 (mlc nand) still on 99% health status and it was used 4-5 years as my os drive 120 gb has the games that i really care to have lower loading times (( path of exile and world of tanks )) the rest meh sure i can wait an extra minute to start civilization ...after that has no effects

now something i might have wrong correct me if i am wrong .... 1 cycle in endurance means 1 write ..right ? so 1tb ssd with 10 cycles life ... means in ideal condition meaning that from the &000000000001 address to &99999999999 address assuming perfect coverage in the line nothing no wasted cells or anything means that it can write 10 tb before it dies .. no ?
so a 2 tb qlc with 1000 cycles in theory it can write 2000 tb and then it will die no assuming *100% perfect conditions * so what is the typical case scenario ? 1000tb for a 2tb drive ?
that's actually a good idea nosir ...but i think the optane type nand would offset the cost saving by using the QLC no ? if that's the case might as well use mlc or tlc from the get go !
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Why /10 and not /3? From tlc to qlc the drop is to 1000 cycles from 3000 , and to be clear i would not be comfortable to use a qlc drive as a heavy duty drive .but if they are a lot cheaper than the other drives they can be great steam libraries you write games ones and then mostly read kind of making the endurance to not matter and you get the benefits of an ssd ! That said if they cost about the same then this is a nope from me also