Posted on Wednesday, May 28 2008 @ 0:34 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Samsung unveiled its working on a fast 2.5" SSD with a capacity of 256GB. This drive will have a sequential read speed of 200MB/s and sequential write speed of 160MB/s. The drive is only 9.5mm thick and measures 100.3mm x 69.85mm.
Once introduced, the Samsung’s 256GB SSD will mark the largest capacity SSD from the global market leader in SSD sales, effectively eliminating density as a barrier to SSD adoption in the consumer space.
“With development of the 256GB SSD, the notebook PC is on the brink of a second stage of evolution. This change is comparable to the evolution from the Sony Walkman to NAND memory-based MP3 players, representing an initial step in the shift to thinner, smaller SSD-based notebooks with significantly improved performance and more than ample storage,” said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc.
Through major advancements in proprietary controller technology, Samsung’s new MLC 256GB SSD, besides being comparable in speed to an SLC-based SSD, also boasts reliability equal to that of SLC SSDs, with a mean time between failures (MTBF) of one million hours, while costing considerably less. Power consumption is also exceptionally low at 0.9 watts in active mode.
In addition, the drive offers a sophisticated data encryption process that prevents data stored on the SSD from being accessed in an unauthorized manner, even after the SSD is removed from the PC.
Overall, the number of computing units in which SSDs are being offered is expected to increase dramatically once Samsung’s previously announced 128GB SSD and the new 256GB SSD are launched. At present, Samsung is actively involved in high-capacity SSD design-in activities for all of the top PC and server manufacturers from the U.S., Asia, and Europe.
This fast 256GB SSD should be available by the end of the year. Samsung also informed us they're working on a 1.8" 256GB SSD, that unit should also be available in the fourth quarter.
