Samsung ships 128GB SSDs

Tag : Low Volume Production

Samsung Electronics Co. has begun volume production of 1.8- and2.5-inch multi-level cell (MLC)-based solid-state drives (SSD) witha 128 gigabyte (GB) storage capacity. The company had already begunmass production of a 64GB SSD.

SSDs are expected to eventually replace hard disk drives in somecomputers because they have greater reliability, faster boot timesand application start-up times, and lower power requirements thanhard disk drives.

For instance, Samsung says its 128GB SSD will last approximately 20times longer than the generally accepted 4-5 year life span of anotebook PC hard drive. Power consumption for the drive in standbymode is approximately 0.2 watts and in active mode, 0.5 watts.

Samsung expects sales of SSD units to increase 800% between now and2010, keeping SSDs on pace to be the largest growth segment in theNAND flash market over the next few years.

Recent research agrees that there will be strong growth for SSDs.The global solid-state drive market reached $400 million in 2007and will have a 70% compound annual growth rate through 2012,according to a report by researcher IDG.

That growth will be driven by higher enterprise computing andmilitary and industrial applications. However, as the price of NANDmemory declines, personal computers, including ultra-low cost PCswill drive SSD growth, according to IDG.