back to article What is this – some kind of flashy, 3-bit consumer SSD? Eh, Seagate?

Seagate has a new line of Nytro consumer SSDs coming using 3-bits/cell flash. These 2.5-inch form factor consumer SSDs are typically positioned as PC/notebook disk drive upgrade products, providing a data access, app load and boot time performance boost for such disk-bound products. A 256GB Nytro 141 appears to be available …

  1. Charles 9

    Getting closer.

    Definitely worth considering if the original drive wasn't that big to begin with, but as mine is 1TB the price tag for a replacement my size is still probably going to be too high to tempt me. And that's just the main drive. Large program and/or program data collections are still going to have to hold out on rust for the time being.

    1. MR J

      Re: Getting closer.

      Seeing how I am more of a heavy user than most people I know, and my disk usage is around 120 GB for Games and 120 GB for everything else... then 1 TB is probably not something most people need.

      I do have about 1.5 TB of ripped DVD's and CD's, but those are on a network drive that virtually never gets used... Cloud storage (CD's are in FLAC, but saved online as high-enough quality MP3) means that my old ripped files are of little use. Online streaming means I can watch "HD" quality films/shows of much of what I own in DVD Quality, so those ripped DVD's are of little use these days either.

      Also.... If your using a program that needs 1 TB of storage, then you probably have high end storage solutions and deep pockets to boot.

      The only people I have ever met that would need tons and tons of storage are people that download illegal software/media.

      1. james 68

        Re: Getting closer.

        Only 120 GB for games? What with the current trend for game development not bothering with any kind of compression or optimization most modern games come in at 12 GB+. My Steam library alone comes in at almost 2 TB and the list of games isn't exactly huge, I dread to think what my total is when I add battlenet, origin and those I own on physical disc. I make do with only having a few installed at a time, with those I'm not using backed up to a 4 TB NAS box so I can install them when I want, quickly and without killing my internet connection for several hours.

        Your argument that only pirates need so much storage is very broken.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Getting closer.

          I'll upvote both of you.

          Non gamers can get by on a 250gb easy. Gamers will vary between 250 to 500gb. As you say, most recent AAA games are around 30-50gb, with a few exceptions being 3-8gb. Mainly those with high budgets and story line get lots of HD textures and video, which takes up more space. Smaller, 2d or for example multiplayer games like Rocket League are much smaller in size.

          But in reality, these companies know the sales numbers, and how many people are buying the 500gb ot 1tb drives. So place pricing accordingly. While we may be exceptions (me only needing just under 500gb, others just over for gaming), we may not be the major market for them.

          1. Danny 14

            Re: Getting closer.

            I have a 2tb spinning rust a 480 'cheap' kingston drive (better than the hdd speed wise). I use steammover to move chunks of the steam library as im playing them, it isn't too much of a hassle.

            Im not much of a gamer but my steam library is 1tb

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Facepalm

            Re: Getting closer.

            Ahem: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

            About a third have over 1tb. So 65% have under 500gb and under total. Plus, 25% have over 250gb free... so not really burning for 1tb SSDs, but I guess there is a bit of a demand for *gamers* there.

            Gamers are still a drop in the ocean for the general market for these companies. With servers and big consumer markets being the main drive. Plus costs. Costs and profits of selling 1 tb drive, vs splitting up those chips and selling 4 250gb drives, or 2 500gb drives!

      2. BazzF

        Re: Getting closer.

        And photographers. And videographers. Even as a 'consumer' non-pro photog, I have almost 1tb of data and associated files.

        Digital cameras resolution is getting higher, which results in larger files. If I shoot uncompressed with my camera is result sin a 80mb file per shot, and a typical day shooting often produces well over 200 shots. Thats nearly 2Gb on it's own, then there's the sidecar editing files that contain adjustments and any processed photos (JPG, TIF, PNG etc).

        A pro shooting a wedding ight genereate 2000-5000 photos. That would be nearly 400Gb just in RAW files.

        1Tb drives are probably the *minimum* nowadays.

  2. LeoP

    Tool for the job

    Spinning rust is not dead, and might not be for years to come. The important part is to understand what goes where.

    Broadcast cache for a production company? We add an 8T disk every week, would be quite costly to flashy that and completely emptied of any meaning - it simply doesn't matter if the material can be read at 20 or 200 times the running speed, it's needed at 1x.

    Your MP3 collection? My experience tells me, it's much more likely the medium will die without warning if it is flash, when you plug it in after a few weeks of poweroff.

    I have yet to see flash in grown-up sizes, that could give disk a run for the money on very sequential workloads. Could easily be, that Disk is still around, when flash is reduced to a footnote in history.

    1. JK63

      Re: Tool for the job

      What point are you trying to make? That business and consumer workloads and requirements are different? Well noted by the author that these are consumer grade SSD.

      As for plug it in and have a failure? That happens with traditional disk as well without warning.

  3. YARR

    Endurance v reliability

    Has 3-bit per cell flash been in existence for long enough to obtain real world measurements of endurance, and reliability?

    Common sense would say your data is twice as likely to be corrupted as for 2-bit per cell flash (due to the cell having 8 voltage levels instead of 4), even if the cell is still operable and has good endurance. Personally I would only use one of these as a temporary data store, as the risk of voltage levels drifting will increase with time.

    1. tony2heads

      Re: Endurance v reliability

      As Dr Tyrell says to Roy Batty: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think this is nothing more than a gimmick

    Of Seagate trying to establish itself as an 'innovative market leader in storage technology'.

    These SSDs are probably no better or no worse than other brands.

    The storage duopoly of WD and Seagate will only continue to erode as SSDs get cheaper and better.

    Currently, I still recommend high capacity HDDs to store/backup your 'stuff', and a smaller (and more affordable) SSD to load your OS, installed programs, installed drivers etc. Clone your SSD boot drive to another SSD if you're really paranoid.

    Remember to backup often, preferably both offline (extra drives, RAID) and online (cloud storage solutions from more than one source).

  5. jason 7

    I like to apply the rule of...

    avoid ending up with masses of data in the first place. A lot of it can be avoided in the domestic arena. Most of it is there because of habit or fear of getting rid of it.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: I like to apply the rule of...

      More like fear of being unable to get it back. Given the ephemeral nature of all things Internet, some of us are of the nature we should hold on in case things start disappearing, much like those viral videos that then get cut off at the source. You know what what say; better by far to have something you don't need than to need something you don't have.

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