DRAM-less NVMe for a storage drive?

[fxscreamer]

I was looking at a 4TB Crucial P3 Plus since they are at a really good price right now. I was planning to use it as a strict storage drive, housing videos, music, dumped files and will mostly just sit there. I've heard DRAM-less drives have lesser lifespans, but if it's used as a storage drive, will that be negligible? It will NOT be used as a scratch drive with constant read and writes going to it.

Is this a safe idea, or do I seriously need to look at DRAM drives for this use case? 4TB Acer Predator drives are also at amazing deals WITH DRAM, but I don't know their longevity and reputations as SSD makers. (I usually get Samsung)

[Electronics Wizardy]

Sure that will work fine. 

 

Dram isn't needed for that usecase(and I'd argue its importance is overstated). I'd be more worried about qlc hurting write speeds, but probably won't be a big issue.

[fxscreamer]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Sure that will work fine. 

 

Dram isn't needed for that usecase(and I'd argue its importance is overstated). I'd be more worried about qlc hurting write speeds, but probably won't be a big issue.

Ok thank you. I had a feeling it seemed to be overhyped. I understand DRAM being useful for an OS or project drive, but storage is much more forgiving. I've never had an SSD fail on me, and I'm hoping this one lasts a long LONG time. (aka a decade)

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, fxscreamer said:

Ok thank you. I had a feeling it seemed to be overhyped. I understand DRAM being useful for an OS or project drive, but storage is much more forgiving. I've never had an SSD fail on me, and I'm hoping this one lasts a long LONG time. (aka a decade)

Even for a boot drive, dram isn't needed normally. I manage a lot of systems with dramless boot drives with no performances issues.

 

Make sure you make backups drives can fail with no warnings, and there are a lot of other ways to get data loss.

[fxscreamer]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Even for a boot drive, dram isn't needed normally. I manage a lot of systems with dramless boot drives with no performances issues.

 

Make sure you make backups drives can fail with no warnings, and there are a lot of other ways to get data loss.

That's why I planned to get two of them.  I'm going through a core rebuild of my system (prepping for 14700K Pro Art Build) and I'm cutting all the fat out of my current system with years of old ssd's, an hdd, and a freaking optical drive lol. Will have almost all storage as NVMe on the mobo.

[Poinkachu]

5 minutes ago, fxscreamer said:

Ok thank you. I had a feeling it seemed to be overhyped. I understand DRAM being useful for an OS or project drive, but storage is much more forgiving. I've never had an SSD fail on me, and I'm hoping this one lasts a long LONG time. (aka a decade)

I used DRAMless SSD for game install drive for some years. And yea I kinda install and uninstall a lot too tbh.
It worked fine, can't notice any difference with the one I am now using (with DRAM), never gave me trouble up until now.
The new drive had error after like 8 months & had to be RMA'd

 

I agree with what @Electronics Wizardy said so far.

[freeagent]

I use an SN770 as a boot drive on my kids PC and it is just fine. I also use one for storage and games on my PC and it too is just fine

[kokosnh]

You do know it’s QLC right?

 

and P3 is identical to P3 plus, just locked to PCIe 3.0.

if you go for it, go P3 if it’s cheaper. 

 

[fxscreamer]

4 hours ago, kokosnh said:

You do know it’s QLC right?

 

and P3 is identical to P3 plus, just locked to PCIe 3.0.

if you go for it, go P3 if it’s cheaper. 

 

Yeah, aware it's QLC, but this is a storage drive that will be loaded with media and files with limited daily use. The P3 Plus is only $10 more for PCI-E Gen 4.0. I think that's worth it for something I plan to have 5-10 years.

[kokosnh]

Well it just seem contradiction for me, that you want SSD that will last ( decade ), but at the same time being one of the cheapest 4TB SSD on QLC.

[ewitte]

I wouldn't want a dramless drive for windows but for a storage device it would be fine.  The real issue is QLC.  QLC has horrible lifespans and post cache performance.

[ewitte]

On 8/27/2023 at 3:04 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

Even for a boot drive, dram isn't needed normally. I manage a lot of systems with dramless boot drives with no performances issues.

 

Make sure you make backups drives can fail with no warnings, and there are a lot of other ways to get data loss.

Latency on an OS drive irritates the crap out of me even if it is minimal.  

[Electronics Wizardy]

59 minutes ago, ewitte said:

Latency on an OS drive irritates the crap out of me even if it is minimal.  

I haven't noticed this issue in the systems I work with. Modern higher speed dramless drives keep latencies down and don't cause issue for most workloads.