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With rapid development of Internet in our daily lives, whether it's photography, movies, TV shows or games, data is getting bigger and bigger. In such a large environment, hard disk capacity will become an unprecedented challenge! Even if a traditional mechanical hard drive can solve capacity problem, it is very slow, bulky and inconvenient to carry, so it is not best choice.

We need a large capacity SSD. Generally, if price of a high-capacity SSD exceeds TB, price is more than a few thousand RMB. This price is unaffordable for ordinary people. In fact, cost of SSD mainly depends on memory, that is, in future development of new types of flash memory, only by solving new types of flash memory, SSD can play a big role.

Against this backdrop, QLC flash memory has emerged. At present, QLC flash memory has been developed, which means that QLC SSD is coming soon. Therefore, in era of big data in future, whether it can replace TLC as mainstream SSD flash memory.

Let's first understand what is TLC and QLC flash?

TLC is a 3-level cell, which means that each cell stores 3 data and 8 states. It features low cost and large capacity, disadvantage is slow speed and short service life. With continuous development of technology, service life has increased by 1500-2000 times, and it is also most common product in current flash memory.

QLC is a 4-level cell. Each cell stores 4 data and 16 states. It features lower cost and higher capacity, disadvantage is poor stability and short service life.

Notes: The more data stored in each cell, higher capacitance per unit area. At same time, it will lead to more different voltage states, which will not only lead to poor stability, but also short life, so that there are pros and cons.

The facts prove that TLC flash memory not only increases capacity of an SSD, but also reduces price of an SSD. There is no fundamental reduction in price of SSD yet. With advent of QLC flash memory, low-cost, high-capacity SSDs may become a reality in future.

What is difference between qlc and tlc flash-granule SSDs?

1. Service life

Toshiba claims that QLC NAND has up to 1000 erase cycles, which is comparable to lifetime of TLC flash memory particles. If so, then there must be a market for QLC SSDs. According to this standard, it will be difficult to write badly in next three to five years. Then it means that QLC flash memory not only has a large capacity, but also can extend life of product itself.

2. Stability

According to above analysis, we can conclude that storage density of QLC flash memory units is higher and twice that of TLC. QLC flash also has certain drawbacks: more states result in more complex voltage control, which will affect performance and stability of QLC flash.

3. Cost

QLC adds a bit of TLC-based stuff, but technical content is very high. Not just a bit unit, more importantly double precision to have better stability. When technical problems are solved, when capacity of SSD will be greatly increased, at same time, cost will be reduced accordingly.

4. Capacity

QLC technology can currently provide a capacity of 768 GB per flash particle, which is currently largest single flash memory capacity. For example, when eight of these innovations are used in an SSD, total capacity can reach 12 TB.

QLC flash memory has just appeared before our eyes, and its stability and service life are still relatively short, advantages of low cost and large capacity of QLC flash memory are undeniable. In future, with continuous development of technology, QLC will also be widely accepted.

The overall mechanical hard drive trend has faded, with SSD sales and revenue receivable surpassing hard drive sales in every way.

Solid State Drives (SSDs), which use flash as their main storage medium, have now begun to take over mechanical hard drive market. In addition, HDD shipment capacity is very fast, but revenue has decreased, which means that price per gigabyte has dropped sharply, and profitability has become a huge problem in future.

According to rankings, top three hard drives are Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba.

The main suppliers of solid state drives (SSDs) are Samsung, SK Hynix, Intel, Micron and Western Digital (sandisk), with a Samsung share of 35%.