Samsung PM863a Enterprise SSD SATA 6Gb/s 3.84TB 4TB

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keybored

Active Member
May 28, 2016
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The SM863 is SLC, PM863 is MLC ...
Technically, they're both MLC since TLC is also MLC. :)
SM863 uses MLC 3D NAND and PM863a uses the new 48-layer TLC 3D NAND. The original PM863 used 32-layer 3D NAND.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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Ok - didnt know that - the SM863 was always faster & more expensive than the PM863 thats why I thought so.
The question is then indeed why the a has significant lower endurance. Not that its not enough for most uses, but ...;)
 

keybored

Active Member
May 28, 2016
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TLC always had lower endurance vs. 2-bit MLC. The numbers simply show that this applies to 3D NAND as well.
I recall when planar TLC first came out, consumer-level MLC NAND was averaging something like 3K P/E cycles. There were even premium/enthusiast products that advertised high quality 5K P/E cycle NAND to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market.
First TLC NAND was rated for about 1K P/E cycles, if I remember correctly, and there were a lot of concerns about endurance.
So, the endurance difference was anywhere between 3x and 5x. The difference between SM863 and PM863 is close to that range, so it looks normal to me. Note that the 10DWPD version of SM863 uses higher OP out-of-the-box, so the ratio is higher there.
 

Larson

Member
Nov 10, 2015
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Is anybody buying the PM863 anymore? I can't believe how they've gone up in price over the last six months!
 

Larson

Member
Nov 10, 2015
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Okay, so it's not just me! I was wondering. I'm looking for two 480GB models as well. Wish now I had bought more when I bought my first one 6 months ago at $110. o_O Now the best price I'm seeing is about $295. That's crazy!
 

keybored

Active Member
May 28, 2016
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SSD prices are up across the board. Supposedly, this is due to NAND shortages as fabs are converting from planar to 3D NAND processes and due to NAND demand in the cell phone market. Sounds plausible, but who knows whether that's the truth. Could be some price fixing going on too. Even the crappy entry level SSDs like the SanDisk Ultra II are selling for anywhere between 20% and 30% more than last year...
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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PM is 3D Vnand TLC
SM is just 3D vnand 2 bit per cell
So complete different products.

I use a lot of PM863's
They are great sata drive for not too intensive workloads, let's just call them read optimised but able to handle some write IOP's but not too much.

That's a fantastic price for the capacity...