Triple-level cell (TLC)
NAND flash that stores three bits per cell using eight charge levels, common in consumer and many enterprise SSDs.
Triple-Level Cell NAND stores three bits per cell across eight voltage levels. Narrower margins than SLC/MLC increase program time and reduce raw endurance, which controllers offset with over-provisioning, strong ECC, and often an SLC-mode write cache. TLC (especially 3D TLC) is the dominant media class in client SSDs and many datacenter read-intensive or mixed-use drives as of the mid-2020s. It is not a protocol or form factor—pair TLC with SATA/NVMe and client vs enterprise firmware when comparing SKUs. Endurance (TBW/DWPD) must come from the specific datasheet, not from the “TLC” label alone.
Relations
- related
- qlc, mlc, consumer-ssd, enterprise-ssd
- supersedes
- mlc
- superseded by
- qlc