Path: ...!news.nobody.at!eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-10
Subject: Re: basic Computer question
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2022 04:32:02 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 172
Message-ID: <t8c5e2$rpb$1@dont-email.me>
References: <t8arpd$abb$1@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2022 08:32:02 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="a9fd77c0c0dfefaa6c1b786b7c1634a2";
	logging-data="28459"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+9hKOL99zmEShTHNiIKqXJ0/892AXuQCY="
User-Agent: Ratcatcher/2.0.0.25 (Windows/20130802)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:m7fsgLFdBfd0XsIbvBIrE1ksglQ=
In-Reply-To: <t8arpd$abb$1@dont-email.me>
Content-Language: en-US
Bytes: 9109

On 6/14/2022 4:41 PM, knuttle wrote:
> 
> I am looking at a new computer.  The one I like with an i7 processor 16GB of ram is a little over $600.    It comes with  256GB solid storage.
> 
> To go with the 1TB option, the cost increases by about $150 dollars.
> 
> The content of my current computer is greater the 256GB so that is out, and I am in not in a location to depend on online storage.
> 
> One option I am looking at is go wit 256GB in the computer and buy a 1TB SD card, that would be semi permanently installed in the computer. I would put the programs, ie browsers, mail, office suite etc, on the 256GB drive and use the 1TB SD card for data storage.  Letters, spreadsheets, and images.
> 
> Is this a workable option?   Or would it cause a performance fault that I don't see.

The SD does not have as good characteristics as other media.

 From worst to best:

    Issues: Fraud, static wear leveling, dynamic wear leveling, service life, access speed

    USB stick   # Can wear out in a year of light usage. Lots of fraud on Ebay/Amazon for these.
    SD          # Many miserable offerings. Many expensive offerings. Not good value for money.

    eMMC        # Soldered storage to laptop motherboard, no repair option. Stupid engineers...
    SSD         #  500MB/sec over SATA III  2.5" form factor. Removable.
    NVMe M.2    # 7000MB/sec over PCI express small four lane connector (MLC-like best, TLC, QLC are worse)
                # Don't buy the fastest one. Buy the one with good flash on it. The TBW rating is an
                # indicator of quality, such as the new Micron Enterprise Flash with ~6x more write cycles.

    *******

    HDD         # 150MB/sec over SATA III, rotating platter and so on.
                # The HDD does not need wear leveling, which is partially
                # what the other table uses as a metric.

An example of the usage of Enterprise flash. Adata announced one before
TeamGroup, back in the middle of the Chia craze. This has a TBW of 12000,
whereas the NVMe I bought here is around 600 or so. That's part of the
reason they offer such a long warranty on the thing -- it's a bit
harder to wear them out.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/team-group-t-create-expert-2-tb/17.html

But your question immediately brings to mind, the suggestion by Microsoft
of making SSD usage mandatory on Windows 11 OEM computers. It should be
up to the manufacturer to decide what media is cheapest, so they can offer
the lowest cost machine. Microsoft should not be making these calls.

*******

Really, the answer to your question is:

    How many storage interfaces does the machine have ?
    Does it have sufficient for "two bays" ?
    Like, if it had an NVMe slot and a SATA 2.5" bay,
    that would be a nice combo.

If all it had was eMMC soldered to the motherboard and no other
storage except SD slot or USB stick, I would take such a product
out back and put it in the burn barrel. Equipment which has only
eMMC, and little in the way of repair prospects, is suited to
immediate landfill delivery.

If you indicate the make and model you are interested in, it
makes it easier to focus on the weaknesses. Like "a person would
have to be out of their freaking mind in 2022, to buy a machine
with 32GB eMMC". As an example of a too-small storage on a modern
computer. I'm sure somebody must still be doing this.

*******

I have bought OEM computers in the past. I always bought them
with removable items, then buy the smallest option possible,
and do my own expansion. Some Mac I bought, came with 256MB RAM,
which I replaced with 2GB of third party sticks. So if a computer
comes with "small storage" or "small RAM", as long as the form factor is
removable, I would shop around and see if the 1TB can be bought
from a third party for less than $150.

This is an example of an economy NVMe.

https://www.newegg.com/team-group-mp33-1tb/p/N82E16820331417

    Team Group MP33 M.2 2280 1TB PCIe 3.0 x4 with
    NVMe 1.3 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive    $70

    Terabyte Written   1TB / >600TB     <=== 600 TBW (write end to end, 600 times)
    1,800 MB/sec read
    1,500 MB/sec write

This shows you what happens on NVMe drives having SLC cache concept (TLC flash chips).
This would be similar to the TeamGroup one, but shows you one of the side
effects of going cheap. It's not all that important in normal usage.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16505/the-western-digital-wd-black-sn850-ssd-review/4

By comparison, the difference on this one, is the write speed
is constant on long transfers. It does not slow down because
it does not use the SLC cache concept that the TLC ones use.
SLC cache concept is actually a *bad* idea. This one is "MLC-like"
and does one write cycle when you write it and not two write
cycles like an SLC cache one does. This really has no other
distinguishing features, other than consistent write speed.

https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-pro-1tb/p/N82E16820147694

    SAMSUNG 970 PRO M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3. X4, NVMe 1.3 64L
    V-NAND 2-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive                $270

    3,500 MB/sec read
    2,700 MB/sec write (and does not slow down from SLC cache)

    Warrantied TBW for 970 PRO:
        600 TBW for 512GB model
      1,200 TBW for 1TB model

So it also is rated for twice the writes (but hardly a reason
to pay $270 for it). The 980 has a better price.

https://www.newegg.com/samsung-1tb-980/p/N82E16820147804

The ones with the 12,000 TBW for a 1TB model, they seem to
come out in press releases, but never show up at retail. There
is some amount of deceptive advertising going on, trying to fool
you into thinking some piece of crap is good for 12,000 TBW.
These things (legit advertising copy) could be estimated as
anywhere from $400 a piece to $1200 a piece for 1TB. But if
I can never find an advert with legit advertising copy as
well as a price, we'll never know for sure what they want for them.
It's possible Chia Farmers were buying those direct from the
factory (similar to how some large purchasers were getting
NVidia video cards).

*******

One with Optane would be "best". I just noticed there's one
listed on Newegg. Small and expensive and the module is rather long.
This might not fit in all laptops (a 2280 might fit).

https://www.newegg.ca/intel-optane-ssd-905p-series-380gb/p/N82E16820167466

    Intel Optane SSD 905P Series - M.2 22110 380GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4
    3D XPoint Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - SSDPEL1D380GAX1        $941

That might be around 5000 TBW. The neat thing about Optane, is
it doesn't have flash pages. It's byte addressable. Which is
why the IOP rate can be quite high and quite believable. The controller
for it, does not have to work nearly as hard as it does on regular
flash. But Intel is getting out of that business, so it won't
be around for much longer. That drive might not be the best
for battery life. But it would kick ass in other respects.
And no, it would not slow down when written from end to end.

I don't think the 960GB version is available as NVMe. If it
was, the TBW is around ~17500 or so, or a bit better than the
vapor-ware Chia ones. The DC power to run a 960GB Optane, would
likely melt the solder on the NVMe stick :-) Optane is a bit
of a power pig on reads and writes. (The PCi Express card
version might have been 17W or so.)

And they are proposing, that the PCI Express revision 5 NVMe
modules (not here yet), will also be power pigs and not
all that practical in computers. There has been the appearance
of fanciful/silly heatsinks for them already (none suited
to laptops). Sooner or later, this madness has to stop
(higher frequencies draw more power).

*******

But that's just to give you some idea, of the span of product out there.
All the way from the cheesy bad, to the cheesy fast/bad :-)
And a few unobtanium thrown in for good measure.

    Paul