Comment by mapt
2 hours ago
You're conflating two things. Yes, Optane would survive more writes. But it wouldn't survive more TBW/$, because much larger flash drives were available cheaper. Double the size of the drive using identical technology, and you double TBW ratings.
This was very clearly not true at the time for the actual implied TBW figures of even a tiny Optane drive, and is not even true today when you account for the much lower DWPD of TLC/QLC media. Do the math, $1/GB vs $0.1/GB where the actual difference in DWPD per spec sheets is more like two or three orders of magnitude, with the real-world practical one being quite possibly larger. (Have people even seen Optane actually fail in the wild due to media wear out? This happens all the time with NAND.)
> it wouldn't survive more TBW/$
Yes it would, by an almost arbitrarily large margin. You can test this out for yourself. Overwrite one of each in an endless loop. Whenever the flash based drive fails, replace it and continue. See how long it takes for the optane to fail.
You should be able to kill a typical consumer flash drive in well under a week. Even high end enterprise gear will be dead within a couple of months.