You can enjoy 1TB large capacity for 299 yuan! XPG Wing Loong S20 SSD Review–Fast Technology–Technology Changes the Future

1. Foreword: QLC has become an unstoppable mainstream trend, and 1TB has reached the 100-yuan level

In PC hardware, what is the biggest technological improvement in recent years? Naturally, it is not a toothpaste-squeezing processor, nor is it a graphics card with explosive power consumption, but an SSD solid-state drive whose capacity and speed continue to soar, but the price is getting more and more affordable.

After SSD entered the public eye, it quickly replaced HDD mechanical hard disk to a large extent. Nowadays, most users give priority to SSD when installing machines, and at most add an HDD to save data.

Especially for notebooks, SSD has long been a standard configuration, with good performance, small size, light weight, and impact resistance. In 2023, 1TB large capacity will become popular.

Of course, from the launch to maturity of any technology, and then to popularization, one of the first places to consider is how to continuously reduce costs. This is an inevitable development process for business, and SSD is of course the same.

As the basic storage medium of SSD, NAND flash memory has gone through several stages: SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC.

Each SLC cell can only store 1 bit of data, and the voltage can only change between 0 and 1. Due to the simple structure, the erasable and writable life has reached 100,000 times, and the read and write speed of a single cell is also 35/25MB/s, but the cost is too high, and it has basically disappeared now.

Each Cell of MLC can store 2 bits of data, and the capacity of SLC can be made twice under the same area, but there are as many as 4 kinds of voltage changes, so the reliability is only 1/10 of that of SLC. The current erasable and writable test of MLC products is usually between 3000 and 10000 times, and the read and write speed is also reduced to 1/3 of that of SLC flash memory.

Each Cell of TLC can store 3 bits of data. Under the same area, the capacity can be increased by 50% compared with MLC, but there are 8 kinds of voltage changes, and the reliability is further reduced, generally between 300 and 1000 times. The reading speed of a single cell is still 10MB/s, but the writing speed is greatly reduced, less than 1/10 of SLC, only 1.5MB/s.

Each Cell of QLC can store 4bits of data. Compared with TLC, the storage density has increased by 33%, but there are as many as 16 kinds of voltage changes, resulting in an early erasable life of only 100~150 times, and the performance is further reduced. , must be equipped with a cache with sufficient capacity, and the slow speed will “show its original shape”.

but,With the continuous maturity of flash memory architecture and technology, and the continuous improvement of main control and flash memory technology, QLC has fully met daily needs in terms of performance and reliability.

More importantly, QLC has a higher storage density, which can more easily achieve large capacity at the same price and make up for the lack of longevity.

I believe that many users have also noticed that there are more and more large-capacity QLC SSD products, and the price is getting lower and lower. Many notebooks have begun to be equipped with QLC SSD as standard.

Especially now that 1TB SSD has reached the 100-yuan level, and now it only costs about 299 yuan to start, which is very attractive in terms of cost performance.

Let’s take the XPG Pterosaur S20 1TB SSD as an example to see the current performance of QLC.