Samsung believes it may just have produced the solid state disk that convinces the world that SSD can replace traditional hard drives.
The 256GB flash drive is the ‘world’s fastest and largest capacity 2.5-inch, MLC-based SSD with SATA II Interface," and has been earmarked for mass production by the end of the year – which could mean a major drop in price.
Rapid
Boasting sequential read speeds of 200 MBps and sequential write of 160 MBps, the SSD certainly looks impressive enough, and should be beginning to surface in September.
"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 Samsung's vice president, memory marketing, Jim Elliott
"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," adds the press release.
SSD Growth
SSD use is already a major growth market - with iSuppli's figures for the early months of this year suggesting the market will grow 124 per cent in the next four years.
"iSuppli now projects SSD sales to increase by an additional 35 percent in 2009 over what it projected last year, 51 percent more in 2010, and 89 percent more in 2011, and continue to show dramatic increases in subsequent years."
