this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
24 points (64.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
30023 readers
669 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics
- 3.1) NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
- 3.2) Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
- 3.3) Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Modern flash-based SSDs are banks of capacitors, and recent ones will usually store 8 different voltage levels per capacitor, allowing it to count in base-8 and saving physical size over counting in base-2. This is called "TLC", or "Tri-level cell", meaning it can store the equivalent of 3 binary bits of data in a single capacitor.
Is there any sort of error correction for this? Don’t capacitors lose charge over time?
Yes, of course there is error correction. Also, while the SSD is on power, it'll constantly go through all data and fix the areas that are starting to deteriorate.
But this does mean an SSD left without power will slowly lose data over months and years.
This also means that writing data is much slower and the SSD can handle far fewer writes. But the tradeoff is that TLC and QLC SSDs can handle 2× and 4× more data than MLC SSDs for the same price.
That's why MLC SSDs are primarily used for professional use and TLC and QLC is primarily used for gamers.
Some TLC and QLC SSDs even allow you to choose how much of the SSD should be used as SLC/MLC space (4× less data, 4× faster writes, 4× more endurance) and which part should be used as TLC/QLC (4× more data, 4× slower changes, 4× less endurance).