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Samsung Announces Fast 256GB Solid State Drive (SSD)

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Apr 12, 2001
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Samsung announced that they will begin delivering a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) later this year. The drive uses a standard SATA II interface, making it compatible with existing Macs. Besides becoming the largest Solid State Drive on the market, Samsung promises remarkable read and write performance:
With a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second (MB/s) and sequential write speed of 160MB/s, Samsung’s MLC-based 2.5-inch 256GB SSD is about 2.4 times faster than a typical HDD.
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The drive will begin sampling in September, with mass production "by year end". Samsung will deliver the drive in 2.5" and 1.8" versions, though we are uncertain if the 1.8" version will be thin enough to fit in the MacBook Air.

Apple first introduced the use of a SSD in their products with the $999 SSD upgrade for MacBook Air. The price to performance benefit of the current SSDs has been somewhat disappointing, though there does appear to be a small battery life advantage. As the economics of solid state drives continue to improve, we are likely to see them being introduced into future Apple laptops. Unfortunately, Samsung has not yet announced the pricing of their 256GB drive, which will likely remain a very expensive option.

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/27/samsung-announces-fast-256gb-solid-state-drive-ssd/
man, this is really exciting with all the advantages we can have from large SSDs. I bet it will be super expensive though, unfortunately. (I might buy it anyway :D)
 
iPod, Touch and iPhone are just dying for this technology to reach the 1 inch storage drive form factor that they use! (iirc)
 
Now the air will be really cool and worth the money- oh wait no it wont. I bet some air lovers out there even think this will boost sales.
 
Ssd

lil' brudder said:
man, this is really exciting with all the advantages we can have from large SSDs. I bet it will be super expensive though, unfortunately. (I might buy it anyway :D)
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Expensive as it may be, this will bring the price of the 64G SSD way down.
 
If it's faster, does that mean it will need to draw more power than the current 64GB SSD to get the extra speed?
 
winterspan said:
HAHA! Keep dreaming you guys.. This thing is going to easily cost over $5,000...
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What makes you think that? 64 GB SSD in the MBA costs $1000, and 64 * 4 = 256, and $1000 * 4 = $4000. Even if you add on an extra premium for it being a new technology making it cost more per megabyte (which is not the direction cost per megabyte usually goes) then it still doesn't sound like there's any reason fo it to cost over $5000.
 
Okay kewl! I've just developed a way for me to buy this thing...

1) Sell my house and
2) Work for the next 2910 years and save 95% of my savings and
3) Find the cure for cancer and sell off the patent to the highest bidder

....yeah! I can finally make my downpayment:D
 
I have been an avid advocate of SSD drives for over 10 years when they didn't even exist. I'm glad to finally see them being developed into a serious competition for traditional ones.

Joshua.
 
Hmm. Even if it is too thick, there might be a 128 GB version that would fit in the Air. Assuming that they make a PATA version of it, too, or that Apple switches the Air to SATA. Anyone know what Apple's particular reason for using PATA was? If it was just to match the drives they wanted (rather than being lighter or less power-intensive or something), then I could see them switching for better drives.

I just hope a 128 GB SSD is cheap enough for me to afford one by the time I want to buy an Air (probably sometime in 2009).
 
motulist said:
What makes you think that? 64 GB SSD in the MBA costs $1000, and 64 * 4 = 256, and $1000 * 4 = $4000. Even if you add on an extra premium for it being a new technology making it cost more per megabyte (which is not the direction cost per megabyte usually goes) then it still doesn't sound like there's any reason fo it to cost over $5000.
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Yep, and it can certainly be made cheaper than 4, 64GB drives-- this is using multilevel cell memory, which means fewer chips, less silicon, fewer interconnects... If Samsung got aggressive this could be priced at 2x the 64GB drive, and probably even less than that.

I'll be interested to see the full performance specs when it ships.
 
Aron Peterson said:
But wouldn't a 500GB 2.5" drive with 7200RPM speeds be faster or just as fast at a much cheaper price?
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No way, the fastest speeds I've seen for a 2.5" 7200 RPM drive is about 80 MB/s read and 65 MB/s write (sequential). SSD drives are much faster as they don't have to spin a disc and move heads physically all over the surface, and that gap is only likely to get wider as SSD technology rapidly improves. The traditional hard disc as we know it is on the way out, but there are some other technologies that could compete with SSD in the near future.
 
HiRez said:
No way, the fastest speeds I've seen for a 2.5" 7200 RPM drive is about 80 MB/s read and 65 MB/s write (sequential). SSD drives are much faster as they don't have to spin a disc and move heads physically all over the surface, and that gap is only likely to get wider as SSD technology rapidly improves. The traditional hard disc as we know it is on the way out, but there are some other technologies that could compete with SSD in the near future.
Click to expand...

But what's the real world performance? A 500GB 2.5 inch drive would have very tightly packed sectors. And at 1TB we're talking super density.
 
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