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CompactFlash, SD, MMC, USB flash storage. Anything that does not have moving parts inside.
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SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 7th, 2025, 17:39

I am interested in a simple question: Why are there no p(SLC) technology SSDs available for sale at a reasonable price for consumer SSDs?

There are some examples 1https://post.smzdm.com/p/a5oqokm3/ 2https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Km4y1L7Nd/ 3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR-21tPLeYU 4https://www.saraba1st.com/2b/thread-2148975-1-1.html from China, but they are not sold anywhere.

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SSDs manufactured 10-15 years ago had NOR flash for storing firmware and capacitors to protect against rapid power loss. These components are very inexpensive for mass production, but now they are not installed, which greatly reduces the reliability of SSDs. WHY?

Some enthusiasts working with SSDs have found a way to change the firmware to p(SLC) Mode, which is very easy to do during production, but why isn't it being done?
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Industrial or corporate SSDs are currently sold at 2-4 times the price higher!
1https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1831777-REG/freefly_910_00798_high_endurance_pslc_ssd.html
2https://www.studiosport.fr/disque-dur-ssd-pslc-de-256tb-haute-endurance-freefly-a29172.html

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 8th, 2025, 10:58

Some enthusiasts working with SSDs have found a way to change the firmware to p(SLC) Mode, which is very easy to do during production, but why isn't it being done?


loss of capacity. p = pseudo.
same is true for improving durability by increasing overprovisioning, loss of capacity available to user.

iow, there's always a trade-off, nothing is free.

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 8th, 2025, 11:18

Arch Stanton wrote:
Some enthusiasts working with SSDs have found a way to change the firmware to p(SLC) Mode, which is very easy to do during production, but why isn't it being done?


loss of capacity, rather that store 3 or 4 bits per cell, only one can be stored. p = pseudo.
same is true for improving durability by increasing overprovisioning, loss of capacity available to user.

iow, there's always a trade-off, nothing is free.

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 8th, 2025, 11:49

Arch Stanton wrote:
Arch Stanton wrote:
Some enthusiasts working with SSDs have found a way to change the firmware to p(SLC) Mode, which is very easy to do during production, but why isn't it being done?


loss of capacity, rather that store 3 or 4 bits per cell, only one can be stored. p = pseudo.
same is true for improving durability by increasing overprovisioning, loss of capacity available to user.

iow, there's always a trade-off, nothing is free.


Can't recall posting that, can be removed. What a shit forum this is becoming.

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 8th, 2025, 15:56

Some enthusiasts working with SSDs have found a way to change the firmware to p(SLC) Mode, which is very easy to do during production, but why isn't it being done?

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Attachments
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Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 8th, 2025, 17:25

why you just repeat the same question?

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 8th, 2025, 23:38

AFAICT, if you convert a 4TB QLC SSD to pSLC, you end up with a 1TB SSD. Therefore, you should expect to pay ~4x.

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 9th, 2025, 12:10

how does it compare having 4TB of capacity, which is shit in measure of endurance, to 1TB which has decent endurance? I am sure there would be ppl willing to pay for SLC/MLC, like myself.
The problem is that SLC and even MLC ssds are not sold anymore, so one has no option to decide. We can get TLC and QLC, the latter being the most unreliable crap ever sold. And QLC is advertised being an advanced technology, but very few care or know it is only the manufacturer who profits from the advance: selling more devices with less expenses and reliability.

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 9th, 2025, 14:03

SLC moved to MLC with double the capacity. TLC bumped capacity again.

SLC has the best write endurance. MLC trades eurance for capacity. Same for TLC and again QLC.

Consumer QLC SSD are still uncommon as TLC is more popular due to the speed and reasonable write characteristics. My WD SN350 2TB QLC SSD has not been a problem mostly as I have more RAM installed than most so disks writes are minimized.

Windows 11 works best with 32GB or more RAM. DDR5 is faster than DDR4 etc. DDR5-4800 is about 38.4 GB/s bandwidth. DDR5 is fast enough for PCIe 4 SDD and even PCIe 5 SSD.

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 9th, 2025, 16:12

Request to the Moderator: I was unable to attach images to my post correctly so that they would be displayed in the same size. Please delete the duplicate question and add direct links to the images.
1)https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/StorageReview-Intel-DC-S3500-SSD-Circuit-Board-Top.jpg
2)https://theoverclockingpage.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-37.png
3)https://ssdtool.com/MAP1602.jpg
Thank you.


I asked why people are not interested in p(SLC) SSDs.
They don't see the difference in reliability and only choose based on price and advertising (It's Cool, Very Cool!).
Various forums discuss a huge number of failures, data losses, and complete SSD failures during normal, non-intensive use.
Doesn't this serve as a lesson to them?
I haven't found any forums where the issue of redesigning or releasing p(SLC) SSDs is widely discussed. Why is that?
SSD (TLC) 4Tb - $350 or SSD p(SLC) 1280Gb - $350. Which would you choose if you had the choice?

Re: SSD by technology p(SLC)?

December 9th, 2025, 21:23

i think i outlined the reason: very low % of users are aware of the scam, so they just go for the cheapest. Moreover, SLC and MLC are no longer available. I've been hunting for some samsung 1TB 970pro a couple of yrs ago, being the last MLC ssds.
I saw some using pSLC, but those were in the now ridiculous sub-100GB capacity range for an unreasonably high price.
I also dream of reconfiguring TLC drives to slc with the capacity tradeoff, this should be theoretically possible coz almost all flash devs use some blocks as SLC cache, so it is just a question of firmware.
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