SanDisk Announces 4TB SSD, Hopes for 8TB Next Year

Someone did a test with Samsung Evo SSD and had written up to 700TB of data before it gave out. I'd cite a reference but I am on the phone at the moment typing this. Google SSD life expectancy and you will find it. I think SSD are at a good point now that the cost and reliability are worth it.

Techreport did a review at 100, 300 and 600TB stops. Still on going as far as I can tell.
http://techreport.com/review/26058/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-data-retention-after-600tb

To paraphrase a paragraph of the review:
Test subjects include six SSDs designed for consumer desktops and notebooks: the Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, Intel 335 Series 240GB, Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB, and Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, which are all based on two-bit MLC flash, and the Samsung 840 Series 250GB, which uses three-bit TLC NAND.
 
Any decent SSD these days if properly maintained in an average user's system will far outlast a mechanical drive in almost every case. The SanDisks I've tested, I rack up 6-7GB a day as a heavy user, and their tested lifespans based on write count would have it lasting in the 3-digit year (100) range. By properly maintained I mean you should leave 25-50% of the space free and not damage it with excessive testing, no defragging, avoid anything that does unnecessary writes, etc.

If they need to be over-provisioned by 50%, that's something the manufacturers should be doing before slapping the size on the package. I can't imagine they need that to hit the manufacturer's numbers. I doubt the components will make it 100 years without something failing due to age rather than use.
 
Why is it nobody here is asking the really important questions, like what kind of Flash are they using. To get to 4tb, they must have moved up to an even higher bit density than is currently in use. We know that as the bit density increases, the number of write cycles per cell goes down. So either these drives will wear out faster, or they have even higher over provisioning which requires even more flash. Also, the way these things work they need to constantly remap the LBAs as they move around the media. This mapping table is generally kept in RAM and for performance reasons is a simple one-to-one LUT, meaning that as flash size goes up, so does the table size. Generally 1tb is considered the limit for this type of system, so I wonder what they are doing for the 4tb drives?

And I find the predictions of the demise of the spindle drive to be laughable. I recently worked in that industry and I can tell you that they are now standing still waiting for the end to come. Spinning drives are not dead, not by a long shot. Solid state will not come anywhere near the $/tb cost of spindle drives for a long time, if ever.
 
Why is it nobody here is asking the really important questions, like what kind of Flash are they using. To get to 4tb, they must have moved up to an even higher bit density than is currently in use. We know that as the bit density increases, the number of write cycles per cell goes down. So either these drives will wear out faster, or they have even higher over provisioning which requires even more flash. Also, the way these things work they need to constantly remap the LBAs as they move around the media. This mapping table is generally kept in RAM and for performance reasons is a simple one-to-one LUT, meaning that as flash size goes up, so does the table size. Generally 1tb is considered the limit for this type of system, so I wonder what they are doing for the 4tb drives?

And I find the predictions of the demise of the spindle drive to be laughable. I recently worked in that industry and I can tell you that they are now standing still waiting for the end to come. Spinning drives are not dead, not by a long shot. Solid state will not come anywhere near the $/tb cost of spindle drives for a long time, if ever.


Yeah pretty sure I recall reading that the higher the capacity, the less write cycles it can take.

To me, the write limit is the big thing that keeps me from using SSDs for heavy mass storage, or anything that will get lot of I/O, unless I specifically require the performance. I could see using a bunch of SSDs in raid 10 for a high traffic DB server for example, and you just live with the fact that you'll be replacing them every few years.
 
Point is... if they're able to make large drives like this, then smaller drives will keep getting cheaper, and as the tech advances, the lifespan of the drives will be improved, as well as the speed. I remember when tape reels were the primary means of storage. Modern hard drives with terrabyte-level storage would have been laughed at if you told someone they'd be only a few decades away. Flash drives and solid-state storage weren't even conceived of except by a very select few individuals, and something like a modern tablet of smart phone was no where near anyone's thinking. Yet, those exist today.

What the naysayers are saying about SSD limits is going to fall by the wayside just as the naysayers were wrong about disk capacity limits, network bandwidth limits, and "nobody will need more than 640K". That sort of thinking didn't push tech forward. SSD's will get faster, more reliable, and last longer with greater storage capacity as time goes on. The future is BRIGHT for SSD's. Platter drives are tried and tested, but SSD is the future, just as flash-based thumb drives have almost completely replaced floppy disks. It's only logical that hard drives will follow that path as well.
 
Point is... if they're able to make large drives like this, then smaller drives will keep getting cheaper, and as the tech advances, the lifespan of the drives will be improved, as well as the speed. I remember when tape reels were the primary means of storage. Modern hard drives with terrabyte-level storage would have been laughed at if you told someone they'd be only a few decades away. Flash drives and solid-state storage weren't even conceived of except by a very select few individuals, and something like a modern tablet of smart phone was no where near anyone's thinking. Yet, those exist today.

What the naysayers are saying about SSD limits is going to fall by the wayside just as the naysayers were wrong about disk capacity limits, network bandwidth limits, and "nobody will need more than 640K". That sort of thinking didn't push tech forward. SSD's will get faster, more reliable, and last longer with greater storage capacity as time goes on. The future is BRIGHT for SSD's. Platter drives are tried and tested, but SSD is the future, just as flash-based thumb drives have almost completely replaced floppy disks. It's only logical that hard drives will follow that path as well.

That's all very nice wishful thinking, but to begin to understand what it is you're making blind assumptions about I would start by reading this:

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...ll-soon-provide-more-storage-than-hard-drives
 
Why is it nobody here is asking the really important questions, like what kind of Flash are they using. To get to 4tb, they must have moved up to an even higher bit density than is currently in use.

Except they haven't. They haven't moved to a smaller die, there is no breakthrough here. That's what the simples don't understand, NAND doesn't just keep scaling smaller infinitely, and the fabs are struggling with 20nm as it is. This drive is a gimmick, not a legit tech breakthrough. 4 x 1TB worth of NAND crammed into a 2.5" case with a controller that manages an effective internal RAID0 at not that great of speeds (400MB/s R/W)

And I find the predictions of the demise of the spindle drive to be laughable. I recently worked in that industry and I can tell you that they are now standing still waiting for the end to come. Spinning drives are not dead, not by a long shot. Solid state will not come anywhere near the $/tb cost of spindle drives for a long time, if ever.

Problem is casual observers see the headline and assume it means some great shift has happened, that smaller SSD's are about to see their prices crashing down and there's no more reason to use spinners.

No kidding that flash memory is going become ever more ubiquitous as a storage medium going forward, that's hardly any revelation, but it won't be for many years before they are able to erase the cost benefits of spinners.
 
Any decent SSD these days if properly maintained in an average user's system will far outlast a mechanical drive in almost every case. The SanDisks I've tested, I rack up 6-7GB a day as a heavy user, and their tested lifespans based on write count would have it lasting in the 3-digit year (100) range. By properly maintained I mean you should leave 25-50% of the space free and not damage it with excessive testing, no defragging, avoid anything that does unnecessary writes, etc.

Well, that does it for Windows file system. EXT4 anyone?? :D
 
Long wAy to go. When 2tb is $200 let me know.

Yeah, I have lost archived video, pictures etc to new spin drives crapping out. Was sent a warranty replacement, crapped out too in a few months. :rolleyes:

Really don't think the quality is what it use to have 15 year old IDE drives that still work fine.
I'm really, really looking forward to SSDs becoming inexpensive.
 
I hope that this is a step towards a reasonable priced 1TB drive.

My mass storage is in my NAS, but my applications right now are all crammed on a 240GB SSD... With stuff like Titanfall taking 50 freaking gigs, that runs out sooner than you'd think.

//Likes a quiet computer
 
I hope that this is a step towards a reasonable priced 1TB drive.

My mass storage is in my NAS, but my applications right now are all crammed on a 240GB SSD... With stuff like Titanfall taking 50 freaking gigs, that runs out sooner than you'd think.

//Likes a quiet computer

I have a smallish 120 GB SSD in my gaming system for a boot drive. Love the fast boot ups! But what causes me the most grief is when my work system which is a linux box flakes out because a bad hard drive. Would love a SSD in this application. Issue is would need at least a 500GB because of the sheer number of digital documents I have to have handy. Still to expensive. :(
 
Watch it all die to a firmware bug the next time your system goes to sleep :p
 
Death to spindle drives? Not quite. But, as SSD prices drop and capacities rise, I do think the margins will reverse. Rather than being 80/20 with spinning drives being the majority, I think SSD's will start to gain popularity (speed, heat, power efficiency). I know if I could go all SSD, I would. I'd still have a backup, but don't we all already have backups of our spinning drives as well?

Some people don't put a lot of faith into SSD's. I don't put a lot of faith in spinning drives. I've lost too many over the years. I've yet to lose an SSD (started with 64GB, then 128 then 240...), but I have only been using them for around 3 years or so.

So, I do see them replacing the majority of standard use drives. Even if the ones in the OP are SAS drives, that stuff does trickle down to the consumer level like everything else. May not be this year or the next, but we will get 4TB consumer level SSD's in the future at a reasonable price.

But - for everyone complaining about lost data - BACK UP YOUR SHIT! :) I say this from experience. Even with a good, reliable drive, it WILL fail eventually. Sometimes, prematurely. SSD or spinning drive, it doesn't matter. Have a good backup. That's about the only way you can make sure your data doesn't get destroyed in case of drive failure...
 
That's all very nice wishful thinking, but to begin to understand what it is you're making blind assumptions about I would start by reading this:

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...ll-soon-provide-more-storage-than-hard-drives

There's a difference between a blind assumption and an extrapolation based upon previous trends. It's not a matter of it, but when solid state tech will replace spinning disks, just as spinning disks replaced tapes. I never said it would happen tomorrow. :rolleyes:
 
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