this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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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).