Certainly nice to have more competition in this space. Optane is great for home lab, but I’m not sure if this offers enough value for Windows gamers, or other large segments.
The usual kind. You should look up definitions for terms you don't understand yourself instead of being lazy.
A home lab is an experimentation or learning platform you have at home, typically for stuff you would normally deploy in enterprise, like virtualization or storage. It can then double as your storage and media server.
Eh, don't get your hackles up. I've been around the block a few times, but this is the first I've ever heard of "home lab". IMO, it's a legit question, since it's not obviously a jargon term.
not related but I would have expected QLC to be far less pricey than it is (for simple example, if most new release 3d/TLC on the shelf price ~$180 for 1tb then QLC should be ~$140 for the same amount (seeing as they get far far more per wafer "usable")
I know business is business, however, when performance is less, takes more for the same "life span" the take for the give is cost less simply due to fact it cannot compete with even 1 gen old stuff using TLC let alone MLC drives
The maximum theoretical savings is 75%, or in your example $135 QLC vs $180 TLC. The problem is that savings only applies to the NAND portion. SSDs have a lot of other costs per unit and fixed costs (for the entire product line), hence by price scaling isn't linear with respect to capacity from bottom to top either.
Even for the NAND portion that savings is also lower because a portion of the NAND die is not going to be cells for data storage and the added complexity means yields will be lower.
On the business side it makes sense. As with the numbers involved even a 10% savings cost wise could be millions of dollars either the manufacture or the purchase (in terms of enterprise deployments or large contracts such as laptops).
On the mainstream, consumer side the NAND price collapse over the last year really makes QLC quite meh. If prices hadn't collapsed you'd be looking at 2x the nominal savings compared to now which would be more significant. Maybe once capacity sizes on the mainstream levels go into the TB range the comparison is a 3 TB TLC drive vs a 4 TB QLC drive for the same cost they might be worth looking at again.
"The problem is that savings only applies to the NAND portion."
does anyone know of a forensic accounting of cost profile of SSD? in particular, what the actual proportion of SSD BoM cost is just the NAND? I suspect, but can't prove, that going from SLC to QLC means more than linear cost increase for control, both in the controller and on die.
You could do porpotion because that is not how it works. In a 128GB TLC SSD, the percentage of Controller will be much higher. Controller is a fixed cost, along with packaging, transportation etc.
Controller can be anywhere from $10 to $30. Depending on supporting speed and features. You will have to DRAM as well if the SSD have it.
Another point is your QLC vs TLC scale does not take into account QLC actually have lower yield. Which means the saving are even less. Which is the reason why Companies are spending more money and time trying to stack way more layers than getting QLC polished.
This is great news. There is a major lack of any mainstream options for low latency SSDs and its leads to very high prices. Opening up the market like this could allow to eventually have low latency SSDs that are approaching being priced relative to their die capacity/price. Eg. If their dice are 4x the cost per GB, we simply pay double for half capacity. Much better than the other options, particularly when any improvement is appreciated!
So XL-FLASH is basically the 3D version of the old planar SLC NAND? What about endurance, does it have the very high endurance of planar SLC? Slicing the latency to 1/10 of TLC's latency sounds exciting, though something tells me the price of these SSDs will be too high for us mere mortals.
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Mookid - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
Certainly nice to have more competition in this space. Optane is great for home lab, but I’m not sure if this offers enough value for Windows gamers, or other large segments.p1esk - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
What kind of "home lab"?Hul8 - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
The usual kind. You should look up definitions for terms you don't understand yourself instead of being lazy.A home lab is an experimentation or learning platform you have at home, typically for stuff you would normally deploy in enterprise, like virtualization or storage. It can then double as your storage and media server.
This /r/homelab post has a few comments in the beginning that give pretty good explanations:
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/8q1sz7/w...
mode_13h - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Eh, don't get your hackles up. I've been around the block a few times, but this is the first I've ever heard of "home lab". IMO, it's a legit question, since it's not obviously a jargon term.Samus - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
I've been in IT for 20 years and have never heard the term before either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Dragonstongue - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
not related but I would have expected QLC to be far less pricey than it is (for simple example, if most new release 3d/TLC on the shelf price ~$180 for 1tb then QLC should be ~$140 for the same amount (seeing as they get far far more per wafer "usable")I know business is business, however, when performance is less, takes more for the same "life span" the take for the give is cost less simply due to fact it cannot compete with even 1 gen old stuff using TLC let alone MLC drives
limitedaccess - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
The maximum theoretical savings is 75%, or in your example $135 QLC vs $180 TLC. The problem is that savings only applies to the NAND portion. SSDs have a lot of other costs per unit and fixed costs (for the entire product line), hence by price scaling isn't linear with respect to capacity from bottom to top either.Even for the NAND portion that savings is also lower because a portion of the NAND die is not going to be cells for data storage and the added complexity means yields will be lower.
On the business side it makes sense. As with the numbers involved even a 10% savings cost wise could be millions of dollars either the manufacture or the purchase (in terms of enterprise deployments or large contracts such as laptops).
On the mainstream, consumer side the NAND price collapse over the last year really makes QLC quite meh. If prices hadn't collapsed you'd be looking at 2x the nominal savings compared to now which would be more significant. Maybe once capacity sizes on the mainstream levels go into the TB range the comparison is a 3 TB TLC drive vs a 4 TB QLC drive for the same cost they might be worth looking at again.
FunBunny2 - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
"The problem is that savings only applies to the NAND portion."does anyone know of a forensic accounting of cost profile of SSD? in particular, what the actual proportion of SSD BoM cost is just the NAND? I suspect, but can't prove, that going from SLC to QLC means more than linear cost increase for control, both in the controller and on die.
ksec - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
You could do porpotion because that is not how it works. In a 128GB TLC SSD, the percentage of Controller will be much higher. Controller is a fixed cost, along with packaging, transportation etc.Controller can be anywhere from $10 to $30. Depending on supporting speed and features. You will have to DRAM as well if the SSD have it.
Another point is your QLC vs TLC scale does not take into account QLC actually have lower yield. Which means the saving are even less. Which is the reason why Companies are spending more money and time trying to stack way more layers than getting QLC polished.
ksec - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
You Couldn't *doAlistair - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
Let's go, flash memory summit 2019!danielfranklin - Monday, August 5, 2019 - link
This is great news.There is a major lack of any mainstream options for low latency SSDs and its leads to very high prices. Opening up the market like this could allow to eventually have low latency SSDs that are approaching being priced relative to their die capacity/price.
Eg. If their dice are 4x the cost per GB, we simply pay double for half capacity. Much better than the other options, particularly when any improvement is appreciated!
Santoval - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
So XL-FLASH is basically the 3D version of the old planar SLC NAND? What about endurance, does it have the very high endurance of planar SLC? Slicing the latency to 1/10 of TLC's latency sounds exciting, though something tells me the price of these SSDs will be too high for us mere mortals.mode_13h - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Unless they made the cells smaller, you should at least expect better endurance than TLC!I would love to see this stuff in an enthusiast-oriented SSD.
urbanman2004 - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I see Toshiba's able to bounce back (rebound) quick since losing 6 exobytes for flash nand in the outage.