Is Intel SSD DC P4500 still good in 2019?

Discussion in 'SSD and HDD storage' started by MegaFalloutFan, Aug 25, 2019.

  1. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    Is this drive worth buying in 2019? 4Tb for about 400USD?
    The spec page says it has modern reads, 3500Mb/s but writes 1050Mb/s which is still plenty and i think since its server grade it should have insane durability.
    Im eyeing it as Steam drive, the only problem is that ill have to buy M.2 to U.2 converter with Cable, its about 30-40USD extra

    I was also considering two 860 QVO 2TB drives, they can be found for as low as 220USD now, i know its QLC but for games in RAID0 that will be plenty, yet the Intel is cheaper and for sure has longer duarbility
     
  2. Chastity

    Chastity Ancient Guru

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    Very happy with my Intel 660p 2TB as my game install drive.
     
  3. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    Im sorry, i never said anything about 660p.
    Do you use them in raid0? or just single drive?
     
  4. Chastity

    Chastity Ancient Guru

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    Single drive. Using it in a RAID0 for game installs would be meaningless.
     

  5. OmniDyne

    OmniDyne Guest

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    Why though? Why not just use hard disks? SSDs don't benefit loading that much, if at all in most games. There are certain titles optimized for SSDs, but your average Steam game will not be one of them. Additionally, games are read heavy thus making endurance a non-issue. Your computer will be obsolete before you exhaust the p/e cycles of the NAND flash.

    You're throwing your money in the trash going this route.

    Longer durability?

    Why would you do this?

    Kind of like using the 660p as a game drive?
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2019
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  6. Chastity

    Chastity Ancient Guru

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    Because I use a laptop, which only has two m.2 ports and one SATA bay. :)
     
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  7. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    This is 100% wrong assumption.
    The game loading difference between SSD and HDD is insane, how can you say otherwise if million benchmarks prove otherwise, hell even on SATA2 non SSD optimized PS4 the difference is night and day.
    I been using SSDs for OS and for Games [separately] since OCZ 60gb drives all the years back, probably 8 or 10 years.
    And been steadily upgrading and going up and now i have bunch of 2TB SSDs, one for OS, one for games, one for video encoding.
    Once you start using SSDs you cant go back to HDDs for anything but archiving.
     
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  8. zipper

    zipper Maha Guru

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    HDD 30 secs, Sata SSD 10 secs for instance for me in Dirt Rally on my old laptop..
     
  9. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    Thats x3 improvement. SSD Wins :)
     
  10. dexterav

    dexterav Master Guru

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    p4500 its 10x beter than 660p crap
    if i have 4500 i be very happy and i never thinking about crap like 660p or other QLC crap
    QLC crap int only about porn/movie, just load and watch
    400TBW endurance on 2TB SSD its like 30000km on cars , god :(
     

  11. SplashDown

    SplashDown Maha Guru

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    You know alot about crap .... lol Sorry I had too ...lol
     
  12. OmniDyne

    OmniDyne Guest

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    Actually, those benchmarks mostly show the opposite. I'll state it again: most games don't benefit. I didn't say all.

    Anecdotal evidence isn't fact.

    The P4500 utilizes Intel/ Micron 384Gb 32-layer 3D TLC; It's actually notoriously terrible NAND, pretty much on par with Intel 64L 1024Gb 3D QLC in terms of performance. In fact, the 660p will be far superior in burst sequential and burst 4K randoms because of the far newer and superior pseudo SLC caching methods.

    P4500: Random Write (4kB) (up to) 68k IOPS

    660p: Random Write (4kB, SLC cache) up to 220k IOPS

    In fact, the 660p is still superior to many newer SSDs in sustained random reads because no other manufacturer can quite match Intel's pSLC caching methods and data center SSDs, such as the P4500, don't use pSLC caching. This means the 660p would technically be superior because the majority of OS workloads are extremely reliant upon random read performance.

    384Gb 32-layer 3D TLC is only superior in endurance, and even that is mostly a non-issue because of newer techniques involving superior ECC in addition to superior DRAM caching involving the LBA and write coalescing.

    Also, look at how much lower the endurance rating is for the P4500 under random workloads:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/11318/intel-announces-new-dc-p4500-and-p4600-datacenter-ssds

    If you were even able to get the P4500 to function in your computer, it really makes no sense.
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2019
  13. Chastity

    Chastity Ancient Guru

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    My main rig is a laptop, and on laptops, m.2 storage IS your storage, as we only have 1 hdd bay. I currently am using a 970 EVO 500GB @ Gen3x4 for OS, a 660p 2TB @ Gen3x2 for Game Installs, and a 860 EVO 1TB in the hdd bay I use for storage/torrents. I also have 2 external Seagate HDD's for archiving.

    The setup works just fine.
     
  14. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    Complete misinformation!


    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    On Average SSDs are exactly TWICE faster, if not on average, in some games like Warhammer 2, SSDs more then THREE times faster, the only game that more or less equal is CSGO, but its light game and even this game is 1/3 faster then HDD
    [​IMG]


    Ignore OCZ TR200, its old trash, not manufactured or sold anymore, start with Crucial BX200, which actually also old trash that not manufactured anymore but good enough.
    [​IMG]

    This World of Warcraft trace contains the start of the game, login in and starting a level. The trace contains 390 MB of reading tasks and 5 MB of writing assignments.
    [​IMG]

    The storage trace is recorded while the user starts Battlefield 3, logs in, loads a saved game and starts playing. The trace is based on 887 MB of reads and 28 MB of writes.
    [​IMG]






    You cant compare SLC cache speeds vs actual NAND speeds, its not the same thing, QLC is complete trash, the moment SLC cache runs out the QLC NAND is slower then Modern HDD, 70 to 80MB/s for 1TB and double then that for 2TB SSD, when you fill it to some point it also slows down because SLC cache runs out, you cant transfer large files to it because SLC cache runs out and it slows down to a crawl.
    660p is last in every benchmark except the ones that hit its cache, you forget that during the benchmark when program writes and then reads it does it from the cache, in the real world scenario when you read files you do it from QLC

    You asked how to connect P4500 to standard PC?
    You can use M.2 to U.2 cable, you can buy directly from Intel for 16USD, you can buy from amazon or aliexpress too.
    You can buy M.2 or PCIe to U.2 adapter, plug it into M.2/PCIe slot and then use standard U.2 cable.
    But I plan on getting x570 Creation mobo and it has single huge heat-sink that covers both M.2 slots, so i cant use M.2 adapters, so I got a very compact all-in-one PCIe x4 to U.2 card without cables, I found a nice black one for 30$
    The "lower" endurance you posted is DWPD- Drive Writes Per Day, with 5-year warranty I have 0.7 Random writes per day for 5 years [remind you its 4TB SSD] and 4.62 sequential writes per day.
    Its insane.
    Enterprise SSDs use far better controllers, this one has 12 channels, the best ones on NVMe drives like Phison E12 use 8 channel, it doesnt need no SLC cache and will write/read based on spec START-to-FINISH, here is the link to my model 3200MB/s read and 1800MB/s write, take note that random read and write IOPS are 100% SPAN, unlike most Mainstream SSDs that degrade in speed the more you fill them up and their SLC cache runs out, these SSDs dont have such issues.
    Also, its Data/Work SSD, not windows SSD.
    For windows in worse case [Choice #3] ill use 1TB Phison E12 NVMe,
    [Choice #2] 500GB 970 Pro with MLC [also has no speed degradation and same speed from 0-to-100%], [Choice #1, but expensive] Optane

    Here is nice video with benchmarks of 1TB 860 EVO [TLC] vs 860 QVO [QLC].
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2019
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  15. Hypernaut

    Hypernaut Master Guru

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    Arma 3 performs better with an SSD too. Let alone load faster. Terrain streaming is an HDD's night mare.
     

  16. 0blivious

    0blivious Ancient Guru

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    I've been using a 2TB 660p as a games drive for 6 months. I've written just over 4TB in that time. At this rate, I won't hit the 400 TBW for about 50 years. I also just checked my 3.5 yr old Evo 850 (500GB). 21TB written in 3.5 years. It has a super low 150 TBW. At this rate, I won't even hit that until year 25. Just saying...
     
  17. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    Thats just one side of things, QVO is just bad outright, mainly its slow.
     
  18. Chastity

    Chastity Ancient Guru

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    Your opinion doesn't reflect everyone's. 24GB SLC cache works just fine for writes, and QLC speed doesn't affect read speeds, making it great as a cost effective drive for applications and games, and OS.
     
  19. MegaFalloutFan

    MegaFalloutFan Maha Guru

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    Its not opinion when its fact, QLC depends on cache and when cache runs out it drops to below HDD speeds, it has limited Endurance compared to proper modern SSDs [Corsair Phison E12 based MP510 2TB has 3120TBW for example] and read speeds are lower then 3D TLC.
    QLC price benefit is minimal, its idiotic to "save" 50-70USD on a product that you buy to serve you for years to come, if QLC was 50% cheaper then yes, but not now when you can get proper Phison E12 2TB SSD with 3D TLC for 250USD and if you look even cheaper
    Hell, even 2TB SATA like 860EVO, WD Blue 3D and MX500, when 100% filled dont drop below 450MB/s.
    When that 24GB buffer on QLC runs out 1TB drive drops to 80MB/s and 2TB to 160MB/s, modern Quality HDD can easily sustain near 200MB/s sequential writes, some go to 220MB/s, all the 10TB ones that go inside WD External boxes [people shuck them, i have lots myself] do 175MB/s
    So in this case, even good SATA SSD will be a better choice then QLC, its similar price, doesnt drop below 400MB/s, to give you example i googled the WD Blue 3D 2TB, from 0% to 100% Fill average speed is 457MB/s, minimal speed 407MB/s, maximum 459MB/s
    Samsung 860EVO will be even faster, not by much but still tad faster.
     
  20. 0blivious

    0blivious Ancient Guru

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    I'm using the drive and the experience is nothing like that dire description. It's quite fast. Games I had on an SSD that were already fast, I've moved over and some are even faster now. Besides, how often does it actually use up 24GB of cache? What scenarios are you envisioning where that is some deal breaking issue for average consumers? I haven't noticed an issue and some of the games on that drive are pretty massive.

    No one is saying these are the greatest things ever, what people are saying is they are a great bang for the buck. That's what sites that have bench-marked it in real world scenarios have said and that's how it feels owning it for many months. Would it be better if it were a top flight drive? Sure. But those were obscenely expensive per TB when I bought this one. They aren't exactly cheap now either unless you roll the dice and buy some off brand like you mentioned. Different strokes. If you want to call that idiotic, so be it. We simply disagree.
     
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