I still wonder, what’s stopping vendors from producing “chonk store” devices. Slow, but reliable bulk storage SSDs.
Just in terms of physical space, you could easily fit 200 micro SD cards in a 2.5" drive, have everything replicated five times and end up with a reasonably reliable device (extremely simplified, I know).
I just want something for luke-warm storage that didn’t require a datacenter and/or 500W continuous power draw.
Cost. The speed of flash storage is an inherent quality and not something manufacturers are selecting for typically. I assure you if they knew how to make some sort of Super MLC they absolutely would.
It’s not inherent in terms of “more store=more fast”.
You could absolutely take older, more established production nodes to produce higher quality, longer lasting flash storage. The limitation hardly ever is space, but heat. So putting that kind of flash storage, with intentionally slowed down controllers, into regular 2.5 or even 3.5" form factors should be possible.
Cost could be an issue because the market isn’t seen as very large.
The reason why they’re not used for consumer use cases yet is because raw nand chips are still more expensive than hard drives. People dont want to pay $3k for a 50tb SSD if they can buy a $500 50tb hdd and they don’t need the speed.
For what it’s worth, 8tb TLC pcie3 U.2 SSDs are only $400 used on ebay these days which is a pretty good option if you’re trying to move away from noisy slow hdds. 4 of those in raid 5 plus a diy nas would get you 24tb of formatted super fast nextcloud/immich storage for ~$2k.
I can’t place why, but the thought of used enterprise SSDs still sketches me out more than HDDs. Maybe it’s just that I only ever think of RAID in terms of hard drives, paired with a decade+ of hearing about SSD reliability issues, which are very different from the more familiar problems HDDs can have.
The power and noise difference makes it more appealing to me, moreso than the speed, personally. Maybe when consumer bottom-barrel SSDs get a little better I could be convinced into RAIDing a bunch of them and hoping one cold spare is enough.
EDIT: I can acquire new ~200$ 4TB Orico branded drives where I am relatively easily. Hm.
I still wonder, what’s stopping vendors from producing “chonk store” devices. Slow, but reliable bulk storage SSDs.
Just in terms of physical space, you could easily fit 200 micro SD cards in a 2.5" drive, have everything replicated five times and end up with a reasonably reliable device (extremely simplified, I know).
I just want something for luke-warm storage that didn’t require a datacenter and/or 500W continuous power draw.
Cost. The speed of flash storage is an inherent quality and not something manufacturers are selecting for typically. I assure you if they knew how to make some sort of Super MLC they absolutely would.
It’s not inherent in terms of “more store=more fast”.
You could absolutely take older, more established production nodes to produce higher quality, longer lasting flash storage. The limitation hardly ever is space, but heat. So putting that kind of flash storage, with intentionally slowed down controllers, into regular 2.5 or even 3.5" form factors should be possible.
Cost could be an issue because the market isn’t seen as very large.
they make bulk storage ssds with QLC for enterprise use.
https://youtu.be/kBTdcdJC_L4
The reason why they’re not used for consumer use cases yet is because raw nand chips are still more expensive than hard drives. People dont want to pay $3k for a 50tb SSD if they can buy a $500 50tb hdd and they don’t need the speed.
For what it’s worth, 8tb TLC pcie3 U.2 SSDs are only $400 used on ebay these days which is a pretty good option if you’re trying to move away from noisy slow hdds. 4 of those in raid 5 plus a diy nas would get you 24tb of formatted super fast nextcloud/immich storage for ~$2k.
I can’t place why, but the thought of used enterprise SSDs still sketches me out more than HDDs. Maybe it’s just that I only ever think of RAID in terms of hard drives, paired with a decade+ of hearing about SSD reliability issues, which are very different from the more familiar problems HDDs can have.
The power and noise difference makes it more appealing to me, moreso than the speed, personally. Maybe when consumer bottom-barrel SSDs get a little better I could be convinced into RAIDing a bunch of them and hoping one cold spare is enough.
EDIT: I can acquire new ~200$ 4TB Orico branded drives where I am relatively easily. Hm.
Flash drives are much worse than hard drives for cold storage. The charge in flash will leak.
If you want cheap storage, back it up to another drive and unplug it.