Review on Samsung 1TB SATA SSD MZ-77Q1T0BW by Wiktor wikliski ᠌

Name: Samsung 1TB SATA SSD MZ-77Q1T0BW
Item: Samsung 1TB SATA SSD MZ-77Q1T0BW
Rating: 3

June 05, 2023

Not everything is so bad, but there are disadvantages.

Because of the flash memory, the QLC is a very average drive in terms of parameters and ambiguous in terms of impressions, although they tried to correctly design it and disguise frankly weak sides.
As a result:
- not suitable as the main drive for the system, with the exception of upgrading laptops with low and medium performance (with a clear understanding of the risks and technical limitations);
– not suitable as a drive for backups;
– not suitable as a drive for frequent recording of large amounts of data;
- not suitable for specific tasks, such as deploying VirtualBox on it
Its main use is according to the “rarely written - read many times” scheme, that is, a second disk for data that is needed right here and now, when cloud and network storages are not suitable for various reasons.

Pros

1. 1GB DRAM buffer for 1TB drive. 2. 40GB SLC cache. In the area of its coverage, the speed of linear recording is kept around 450Mb / s. 3. Moderate heating when recording for a long time. On the other hand, why would it need to warm up at write speeds outside the DRAM buffer and SLC cache in the region of 70MB / s? (see paragraph 1a of disadvantages) 4. The quite usable Samsung Magician utility with the possibility of additional drive optimizations (RAPID-mode with the allocation of part of the PC RAM for the buffer, the allocation of additional SSD flash space for an additional SLC cache).

Cons

1. The key drawback is the QLC flash memory (Quad Level Cell - 4 bits per cell). From this follows the following: 1a). The speed outside of the DRAM buffer and SLC cache drops to 70MB / s with linear writes, which is lower than the speed of the "classic" HDD 5400rpm. The time it takes to transfer data from an old drive to a new drive can be an unpleasant surprise. 1b). Less resource of write cycles per cell compared to MLC and TLC. 1c). The lower ability of 4-bit flash cells to retain a charge for a long time compared to MLC and TLC, which will further lead to a faster decrease in the read speed of non-rewritable flash sections for a long time. There is little hope for the proprietary controller firmware that it can detect cells with long read delays and can “refresh the charge”. "But this is not accurate" (c). 2. SSD firmware conflicts with VirtualBox. When deploying any operating system on VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image), while saving the image file on the Samsung QVO870 SSD, the system inside the container starts to slow down wildly, up to errors. Checked multiple times. With the same program settings on an ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro SSD, WD Green VirtualBox works fine.