Why not? There's certainly a group of consumers who will pay more for higher quality. I'm one of them. 2-3x current SSD costs for a better quality SSD would be completely fine with me. You're not paying more than you have to for the same product, you're purchasing a different product.
Intel tried that with Optane with disastrous results (from a financial perspective). SLC doesn't require much separate R&D and manufacturing infrastructure beyond what already exists to serve the markets for TLC and QLC. But that lower barrier to entry still hasn't led to many attempts to serve this niche. Apparently the people with real sales volume data are convinced there's less of a market for expensive and small consumer SLC SSDs than there is for consumer 8TB TLC or QLC SSDs that cost as much as a decent laptop.
Apparently the people with real sales volume data are convinced there's less of a market for expensive and small consumer SLC SSDs than there is for consumer 8TB TLC or QLC SSDs that cost as much as a decent laptop.
They realised it's easier to keep making a profit when drives keep "wearing out" (i.e. failing to be a data storage device) on a consistent and short(ening) schedule. Just like SLC, Optane was too good.
"small" is relative. 8TB of QLC is 2TB of SLC. They will both cost the same (if anything, the SLC might even be cheaper from a firmware/controller development perspective) yet the former might last a few years, and the latter several decades.
A 2TB SLC drive is going to fill up before an 8TB QLC drive wears out, so I don't buy the planned obsolescence argument. And in reality, the kind of consumer who would spend $1k on an SSD is going to move on from it within two or three years anyways in favor of a newer drive with a faster interface.
It will fill up, and more importantly, the data will stay intact. The endurance and retention of SLC is high enough that you can trust it for more than a few years.
And in reality, the kind of consumer who would spend $1k on an SSD is going to move on from it within two or three years anyways in favor of a newer drive with a faster interface.
...or expect that it will last much longer than a cheaper one.
