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Here's a good reason why you might want to “downgrade” your SSD and lose capacity in the process: The cheap QLC SSD can be transformed into an expensive SLC to improve endurance, but it's not for the faint-hearted.

Here's a good reason why you might want to “downgrade” your SSD and lose capacity in the process: The cheap QLC SSD can be transformed into an expensive SLC to improve endurance, but it's not for the faint-hearted.

We love crazy tech projects here at TechRadar Pro – Some of our recent favorites include an enthusiast who got ChatGPT running on a NAS and the person who transformed AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor into a storage device with read and write speeds that rival some of the best SSDs .

The last idea that crossed our desks comes from Gabriel Ferraz, computer engineer and maintainer of the TechPowerUp SSD database, who converted a 512 GB QLC SATA III SSD into a 120 GB SLC one.

You probably know this, but as a refresher, SLC NAND contains one bit of data per cell, resulting in faster data writing, lower power consumption, and higher cell endurance than QLC NAND, which stores four bits per cell. cell. QLC NAND is denser and cheaper, but has the disadvantage of compromising longevity and speed.

3000% stamina increase

Ferraz's idea was to trade capacity for vastly improved performance and endurance. He grabbed a Crucial BX500 512GB SSD that has a Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 controller and Micron NAND flash drives. Using an application called MPtools for the Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 controller, he identified the precise die used in the SSD and entered new die reference numbers.

It was worth it? Well, although Ferraz lost a lot of disk space, he says that “the endurance of the SSD jumps to 4000 TBW (write cycles), which is an increase of about 3000%. In addition, the performance also increased.”

Ferraz explains his process here, and you can also watch him perform his clever trick in the video below, which includes benchmarking results.