QLC for mass storage of large files

[Klasta]

A local store has the Samsung QVO 4TB on discount for €400. With all the mixed things I've been reading on QLC nand, I'm a bit hesitant to pull the trigger to replace my 2TB HDD that's bursting in its seems with this SSD.

It will be mostly filled by large (torrented) video files (usually between 15GB and 20GB) for streaming while simultaneously playing the role of main storage device for my PC (for downloads, images, documents, etc.) with a handful of older videogame titles to share during LAN parties. So significant rewrites will be limited to random files in the download folder.

In case this is important to someone: It will be paired with two 500GB 860 EVO's in RAID0 dedicated to my steam library and an 128GB 850 pro bootdrive.

 

So my concerns are as followed:

• Is the relatively limited number of rewrites even relevant in this situation?
• I've read that the part used as a SLC-cache is 6GB to 72GB. I assume this means it writes files smaller than 72GB as SLC than consolidates it in the background (as long as I have 72GB of free space)? If so, how does this impact the amount of rewrites and does it this differ whether a file is torrented or not (as the downloadspeed will never exceed the write-speed of the disk).
• Would it be more sensible to buy a WD Black 4TB (€200) and later add an Intel Optane when I finally upgrade to a supporting platform (which I plan to do when Intel releases a platform supporting PCIe 4.0)

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

i would just do 2x 1tb standard ssd into raid0 ( qlc or tlc wouldnt give a crap about this :F )

 

for storage these days some games are like 110gb already so... :f

 

for bootdrive id always use a m2 ssd

 

i dont think ul ever make it to write limit at all , and i wouldnt botehr with pcie 4 m2 sata bcoz there barely is even a difference between expensive and cheap ssd these days 

[Sakkura]

If you're not going to be replacing those torrented videos much, endurance shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

The size of the SLC cache changes depending on how much space is used on the SSD. That's what the numbers refer to. And yeah writes go into the SLC cache which then flushes when the drive has time.

 

There's always going to be some shuffling around causing write amplification, but it's not a big deal if you keep some empty room on the SSD. And bear in mind some space is already permanently set aside like that and doesn't appear as available space in the OS.

 

Doubt there's any reason to go for Optane and HDD with your use case.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, Klasta said:

So my concerns are as followed:

• Is the relatively limited number of rewrites even relevant in this situation?
• I've read that the part used as a SLC-cache is 6GB to 72GB. I assume this means it writes files smaller than 72GB as SLC than consolidates it in the background (as long as I have 72GB of free space)? If so, how does this impact the amount of rewrites and does it this differ whether a file is torrented or not (as the downloadspeed will never exceed the write-speed of the disk).
• Would it be more sensible to buy a WD Black 4TB (€200) and later add an Intel Optane when I finally upgrade to a supporting platform (which I plan to do when Intel releases a platform supporting PCIe 4.0)

1) No.

2) The cache allows the SSD to actually defragment and consolidate the various blocks when it writes them to the long-term SLC, so it's just beneficial and whether you're torrenting something or not is irrelevant.

3) With a single QLC SSD, you get the full read-speeds regardless of which file or portion of a file you're reading as the SLC-cache is only used for writes. With Optane, you only get SSD-speeds for things that are cached on the Optane, but everything else will be read at HDD latencies and speeds. You have to decide for yourself on this one.

[Sakkura]

1 minute ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

i would just do 2x 1tb standard ssd into raid0 ( qlc or tlc wouldnt give a crap about this :F )

 

for storage these days some games are like 110gb already so... :f

 

for bootdrive id always use a m2 ssd

RAID0 is a bad idea, double the failure rate for little real-world performance gain.

[Princess Luna]

10 minutes ago, Klasta said:

Would it be more sensible to buy a WD Black 4TB (€200) and later add an Intel Optane when I finally upgrade to a supporting platform (which I plan to do when Intel releases a platform supporting PCIe 4.0)

Nah Optane never really worked out properly and won't be very useful for your case since you're after a mass storage solution.

 

I'd be perfectly fine with the QVO, even when you're writing directly into QLC cells it is still faster than a HDD so it doesn't matter does it? main goal of SSD is the reliability and endurance.

 

QLC has shorter life span but it still is so much but SO MUCH writing you can do on it (specially a 4TB sized one) that if you plan replacing it on 6 years or so you won't have any issues what so ever.

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

i would just do 2x 1tb standard ssd into raid0

RAID speeds up sequential reads/writes, but it also increases latency. The OP is talking about torrents, random files and so on, which are all random data, not sequential, and so there'd be quite a big loss of performance due to the latency-hit. Whether the hit matters to the OP is up to them to decide, though.

[Princess Luna]

3 minutes ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

raid0

Raid 0 is a terrible solution for SSDs, you're much better buying a single higher capacity one.

 

This video is great to display it:

Regardless if it's NVMe or SATA3

[2FA]

If you ever go to move the large files off the drive, it will be incredibly slow, otherwise I think it's fine for your use case.

[Vishera]

When it comes to large files QLC performs worse than a Hard Drive after it's cache gets full,while with TLC it will continue to read/write at high speeds with full cache.

Go for a EVO if you want a Samsung SSD

[Princess Luna]

12 minutes ago, Vishera said:

When it comes to large files QLC performs worse than a Hard Drive after it's cache gets full

It really isn't that bad... check this out:

 

There's too much sensationalism and needless bashing on QLC drives without good reason, videos like Linus own video on the 660p were pretty misinformative... the drama just sell better.

[Vishera]

Just now, Princess Luna said:

It really isn't that bad... check this out:

 

There's too much sensationalism and needless bashing on QLC drives without good reason, videos like Linus own video on the 660p were pretty misinformative... the drama just sell better.

Check this review and testing of EVO vs QVO:

 

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Vishera said:

Check this review and testing of EVO vs QVO:

I have plenty of videos that prove QLC drives are perfectly fine solutions for majority of user cases when you're not obsessing about synthetic unrealistic scenarios:

So...?

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

I have plenty of videos that prove QLC drives are perfectly fine solutions for majority of user cases when you're not obsessing about synthetic unrealistic scenarios:

So...?

You clearly didn't watch the whole video (this time the video will start at the real world benchmark):

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Even with the reduced durability compared to TLC, a QLC drive is very likely to last the average user for several decades. 

If the drive is used to host torrents or other files that only get read and not written, the controller will die long before the NAND is anywhere near worn. 

 

I wouldn't use a QLC drive as a Win10 OS drive because of how much that OS likes to write, but for mass storage it'll do just fine. 

Yeah sure, due to the whole cache thing it'll take longer to fill the drive if you're going to be copying lots of data over from another one, but that's a one-time annoyance. 

[Princess Luna]

9 minutes ago, Vishera said:

You clearly didn't watch the whole video (this time the video will start at the real world benchmark):

Yes, I see a much cheaper SSD still outperforming any HDD even on the only instance it slow downs and mind you OP is looking at the 4TB variant not the 1TB which has considerably more SLC cache.

 

You have to understand OP case he is downloading torrents, not moving 70GB+ files at once from one drive to another, he'd need a ridiculous fast internet connection and be downloading this ludicrous amount of data at once to have any slow down, once he is finished all SLC cells offload to the QLC keeping the drive ready for the next download seeming-less.

 

Read speeds are unaffected, q1t1 writes are unaffected, latency is the same.

[Tan3l6]

53 minutes ago, Klasta said:

It will be mostly filled by large (torrented) video files (usually between 15GB and 20GB) for streaming while simultaneously playing the role of main storage device for my PC (for downloads, images, documents, etc.) with a handful of older videogame titles to share during LAN parties. So significant rewrites will be limited to random files in the download folder.

 

 

Although I've used only SSDs couple of years, still for given role I'd recommend HDD.

4 times more affordable.

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

mind you OP is looking at the 4TB variant not the 1TB which has considerably more SLC cache.

Good point,as long as the cache is bigger than the size of the files you are transferring QLC will be fine.

[Klasta]

Thanks for the advice guys, sounds like a worthwhile upgrade.

 

27 minutes ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

i would just do 2x 1tb standard ssd into raid0 ( qlc or tlc wouldnt give a crap about this :F )

 

for storage these days some games are like 110gb already so... :f

 

for bootdrive id always use a m2 ssd

 

i dont think ul ever make it to write limit at all , and i wouldnt botehr with pcie 4 m2 sata bcoz there barely is even a difference between expensive and cheap ssd these days 

I need the 4TB if I don't want to go out and do this all over again in 6 months. The size of modern games doesn't really matter anyway since I have 1TB allocated for that in a different spot. My motherboard doesn't support M.2 (still rocking Z87, refusing to upgrade to yet another Haswell refresh and I've had terrible experiences with AMD in the past). That's also the reason I want PCIe 4.0 so I don't have an incentive to buy a new motherboard/CPU for the next 5 years (as I do fairly little that's CPU-bound anyway).

 

35 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

3) With a single QLC SSD, you get the full read-speeds regardless of which file or portion of a file you're reading as the SLC-cache is only used for writes. With Optane, you only get SSD-speeds for things that are cached on the Optane, but everything else will be read at HDD latencies and speeds. You have to decide for yourself on this one.

The read speeds aren't really an issue (for the moment). It's mostly access time and slow thumbnails that are pushing me towards a faster solution. I assumed the thumbnail bit would be fixed by optane with only a minor change in access time.

 

36 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Raid 0 is a terrible solution for SSDs, you're much better buying a single higher capacity one.

Regardless if it's NVMe or SATA3

I had one 500GB 850 evo hooked up to my PC than scavenged another 500GB 850 evo from a laptop that died and decided RAID0 would just be more convenient as it shows up as a single drive on which I can dump my steam library. Failure rate is quite irrelevant as everything is backed up by steam anyway.

[Klasta]

5 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Although I've used only SSDs couple of years, still for given role I'd use HDD.

4 times more affordable.

Depends on the comparison, a WD Black 4TB costs slightly more than €200 so it's less than twice as affordable while still giving me annoyingly slow thumbnail loading and access time while also being a tad louder. Another small benefit would be the ability to remove all of my case's HDD-cages as I still have room for 2 SSD's behind the motherboard tray.

You could argue whether those slight inconveniences are worth €200 which is totally fair. I'm considering it because I don't want to upgrade this part of my storage solution again for at least 5 years so that's like €3 a month to get rid of those, admittedly minor, inconveniences.