Plextor Reveals Its TLC-based SSD

By Tarun Iyer
published

The company's prototype SSD offers a lower cost and longer longevity than comparable MLC based SSDs.

Plextor has taken the wraps off a prototype Triple-level Cell (TLC) based NAND Solid State Disk that pairs Toshiba's 19 mm TLC NAND memory with a Marvel controller. Since TLC memory stores more bits per cell than Multi-level Cell (MLC) and Single-level Cell (SLC) based devices, its chips are physically smaller, require less power to operate, and so far have mostly been used in lower end memory cards where speed and reliability are not high priorities.

Plextor's new SSD goes against this trend by offering speeds in excess of 500 MB/s (read) and 400 MB/s (write), random 4k IOPS of 80,000 (read) and 72,000 (write), and better reliability than comparable MLC devices.

Though the SSD's release date, availability and price are still unknown, Plextor has announced that it will be available in 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB variants with 256 MB, 512 MB and 712 MB of DDR cache memory, respectively.

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Tarun Iyer
22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • iceclock
    interesting specs. lets see whats the final msrp price is. than i might be more interested.

    Reply
  • madjimms
    The more SSD manufacturers, the cheaper the technology will become and that's a good thing for us enthusiasts.

    Reply
  • Sakkura
    Since TLC memory stores more bits per cell than Multi-level Cell (MLC) and Single-level Cell (SLC) based devices, its chips are physically smaller, require less power to operate, and so far have mostly been used in lower end memory cards where speed and reliability are not high priorities.
    Ahem... what about the Samsung 840? I suspect they've been selling like hotcakes for a while now. It's good to see other vendors joining the fray though, this could really drive the prices down, allowing consumers to reap the full benefit of TLC-based SSDs.
    Reply
  • bison88
    Interesting. I have to wonder if TLC is much cheaper and smaller, then why not push drives in the 512, 768, 1024GB range as it should be easily possible?

    Lets be honest about one thing though: "better reliability than comparable MLC devices." Reliability and TLC flash do not go in the same sentence in reference to MLC. Gives the wrong impressions. It simply hasn't been around long enough in the consumer market to say otherwise.
    Reply
  • greenrider02
    If TLC stands for "Tender Loving Care," then I'm definitely buying this product.
    Reply
  • leandrodafontoura
    Had this been offered in 1TB or 2TB, I would buy it today, but competing in 512mb against Crucial/Corsair/OCZ, I dont see Plextor making any profit
    Reply
  • s3anister
    bison88Interesting. I have to wonder if TLC is much cheaper and smaller, then why not push drives in the 512, 768, 1024GB range as it should be easily possible?Lets be honest about one thing though: "better reliability than comparable MLC devices." Reliability and TLC flash do not go in the same sentence in reference to MLC. Gives the wrong impressions. It simply hasn't been around long enough in the consumer market to say otherwise.I don't know where you're getting that quote but, "Reliability" and "TLC" have never been used in the same sentence the way you're implying it has.

    It is fact that TLC has a shorter life-span than SLC or MLC and is therefore more unreliable than the competing SLC and MLC alternatives. This is why TLC drives are more inexpensive, take the Samsung 840 line for example: The 840 is cheaper than the 840 Pro because it uses TLC unlike the Pro's MLC.
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    bison88......Lets be honest about one thing though: "better reliability than comparable MLC devices." Reliability and TLC flash do not go in the same sentence in reference to MLC. Gives the wrong impressions. It simply hasn't been around long enough in the consumer market to say otherwise.
    Thats akin to saying "Tri-Gate technology hasn't been around long enough in the consumer market to know longevity." Its the same principle behind both of these technology's, and no company would release a product with an untested lifecycle. Considering most SSD's can sustain 50k+iops, how long under 100% load would it take for you to hit 1,000,000 or even 100,000,000 read/write cycles on a specific cell? 86,400(seconds/day) X 50,000 (iops) = 4,320,000,000 reads/writes per day. Thats over 1 million reads and writes to every bit of a 4GB chip in 3 months. You don't think they did three months of testing?

    What I am still curious about, is why hasn't a company used less expensive higher capacity chips setup in some kind of internal raid array to counteract the lower performance with sheer volume, to offer great speed and capacity at a better price point before now..
    Reply
  • razor512
    TLC memory = less than half the life of MLC flash, and slower write speeds and higher error rates as the cells age.
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    SakkuraAhem... what about the Samsung 840? I suspect they've been selling like hotcakes for a while now. It's good to see other vendors joining the fray though, this could really drive the prices down, allowing consumers to reap the full benefit of TLC-based SSDs.
    Samsung 840 is a low power, low performance SSD. That's what the article was referring to. Samsung 840 is even slower than Crucial M4 IIRC and although that's still faster than any hard drive, especially for random throughput, it's still much slower than the high end SATA 6Gb/s SSDs such as Samsung 840 Pro and many others.

    s3anisterI don't know where you're getting that quote but, "Reliability" and "TLC" have never been used in the same sentence the way you're implying it has.It is fact that TLC has a shorter life-span than SLC or MLC and is therefore more unreliable than the competing SLC and MLC alternatives. This is why TLC drives are more inexpensive, take the Samsung 840 line for example: The 840 is cheaper than the 840 Pro because it uses TLC unlike the Pro's MLC.
    You are confusing reliability and endurance. The TLC NAND isn't any less reliable than the MLC, but it usually has lower endurance.

    madjimmsThe more SSD manufacturers, the cheaper the technology will become and that's a good thing for us enthusiasts.
    Plextor has been selling SSDs for at least two or three years now. They're not new.
    Reply