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Samsung announces 256GB SSD
New super-fast SSD will be 2.4x the speed of a standard hard drive, claims Samsung
Solid state disks may well be the way of the future, but when Samsung’s 64GB SSD costs a heart-stopping £538.36 inc VAT, it’s fair to say that we’re going to be clinging on to our hard drives for a while yet. However, that hasn’t deterred SSD king Samsung from announcing a brand new 256GB SSD, which boasts some incredible read and write speeds.
According to Samsung, the 256GB SSD is 2.4 times faster than a typical hard drive. The company quotes a sequential read speed of 200MB/sec, and a sequential write speed of 160MB/sec, both of which are significantly quicker than the respective 120MB/sec and 100MB/sec speeds of the company’s 64GB drive.
Despite the high data transfer speeds, however, Samsung claims that the new drive will only consume 0.9W when active and it’s also only 9.5mm thick. The new drives will come equipped with a S-ATA II interface, and Samsung claims that samples will be shipping in September this year, with mass production starting by the end of the year. A 1.8in version of the drive is also planned for smaller laptops.
Given the high price of even a 64GB SSD at the moment, the new drives aren’t likely to be cheap, but Samsung says that the 256GB capacity will be a move towards 'effectively eliminating density as a barrier to SSD adoption.’ Samsung Semiconductor’s director of memory marketing, Gerd Schauss, made a bold comparison between the new drive and ‘the evolution from the Sony Walkman to NAND memory-based MP3 players.’
The capacity of SSDs has rocketed in recent years, but the prices of high-capacity drives are still much higher than those of comparatively sized hard drives. How long will it be until SSDs become standard and we no longer need hard drives, if ever? Let us know your thoughts.
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I happen to know the answer to this one. Originally, when memory was being overwritten (in the same place) at a high frequency, there was a thing such as memory burn out. However, even things as cheap as SD/XD ram has a balancing effect done on the actual physical ram which extends the life well beyond use. I have some PDA devices that use Compact Flash ram (and write too it all day long). Those devices have Compact Flash 128mb in them (yes, that old) that are going on 6 years old now. Proof that even simple cheap compact flash can last. The estimated life on a 64-gig SSD is around 40 years, again, well beyond the anticipated lifespan of the drive. So the only people worrying about this issue any more are the engineers who want to make higher claims. The issue has been dealt with and is pretty much over with a 40-year overwrite expectancy based on standard hard drive usage in a notebook operating at 24/7.
Comment by stlscott at 4:00am 2nd June 2008
No one ever seems to mention that flash memory used to have a finite number of write cycles. Has this issue been eliminated or if one used this as a Windows system drive would it be dead in a year or 2?
Comment by picnic at 12:06pm 30th May 2008
I first purchased a 4X CD player (yes just player, not writer) in 1991 and it cost a staggering £104. Trust me, it won't be that long before this 'advanced' technology becomes affordable mainstream.
Comment by 6trouter at 8:33am 29th May 2008
you had a product that you've developed and tested and want to sell,and a PR. Would you listen to the PR guy if he said "well, the best thing to do is sell them as cheaply as possible, sure, you'll lose £3000+ on each unit sold, and you will go bust within a year, but hey, they'l be popular"
Comment by EdArch at 3:41pm 28th May 2008
I think some people are missing the point when it comes to pricing...Samsung are NOT overpricing these things, they have to charge thi amount at the moment in order to pay for the development and initial manufacturing costs! so that includes all the machinery bought in to make these things, all the test runs, all the engineers working on them and designing them etc etc. If you ask Samsung how much it has cost for them to get to the point of being able to say they have this 256Gb drive with its current speed, the answer will easily be an eight-figure number. So, lightning_pete, they already have a huge marketing department, but they can't make a stupendous loss on each drive they sell or they'll never gain back the money they've spent on making the drives possible which means they will end up not being made at all because they aren't breaking even, and companies have to at least break even in order to survive - look at AMD, Rock, etc. - the serer and business markets will invest in the new technology once its benefits are seen, then in a couple of years, consumers will be able to buy them. It's how alot of components are roadmapped. I know we all want one, I wouldn't mind one, but I don't want Samsung to make huge losses on each drive so they end up pulling the plug on an innovative piece of hardware.
Comment by EdArch at 3:31pm 28th May 2008
Let the server guys and gals pay for the R&D then the home market will use them once its affordable. It happens everywhere in the industry so i wouldnt worry too muc h right now. And although the drives are expensive, when you think about the cost of electricity for large RAID arrays and the required throughput server companies will start lapping these things up. Also for a HTPC have a look at some v. small drives. 50GB would be huge for a HTPC using vista if you use common sense and store video etc. on a network share. I have a large fileserver sharing media across my network at home and when I have the money for a HTPC i will be able to stream everything. The HTPC wont need a large drive so a small one (maybe even 32GB) would be fine.
Comment by reashlin at 2:53pm 28th May 2008
I think the sweet spot for an HTPC will be 64GB at 40MB+ write speed for £200. Expect to see that later this year (Super Talent have a 60GB drive in US which lists for $450). Desktop adoption will want what 256GB at that price point. Assuming 40% annual flash price deflation that will take 18-24 months. Xmas 2010 then...
Comment by jontseng at 7:54am 28th May 2008
"How long will it be until SSDs become standard and we no longer need hard drives...?" 3 to 5 years.
Comment by rahneshin at 11:54pm 27th May 2008
The price of these bad boys is gona come down as quick as all tech does. think of the price of a 1TB hard 2years ago? they must be 30% the price of that now! I say let samsung overprice em now, because chances are they will be mass producing and pricing them like they do now. They will be like spinpoints in 2years.............but without the spin
Comment by dannyboy1991 at 10:52pm 27th May 2008
Why dont samsung use something called a marketing team and employ a much better pricing and supply strategy to the eagearly awaiting digital world, where 1000's of individuals, 100's of computer buolding companies and several insitutions would love the chance to get a hold of these solid disks that write and read faster than a 10 year old eats a bag of haribo, and start getting these out fast? Typical companies that know ther stuff tech wise, but PR and Marketing... i will even spell it out: Laugh Out Loud.
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 10:04pm 27th May 2008
The price won't drop yet since they are probably only making them in batches so far and mass production is hugely expesive to set up. Not to mention they probably milk as much money out of people as they can.
Comment by KanPai at 8:47pm 27th May 2008
At last a useful size SSD! Though given the availability of Samsung's smaller SSD's, it may be quite a while before we can actually buy one.
Comment by l3v1ck at 8:02pm 27th May 2008
...inclluding R&D are probably to date, quite high. They've probably spent a fair few £million on the development of this technology to reach the point its at now. I reckon it makes sense for samsung to be concentrating on boosting performance/capacity as much as they can at the moment, making the SSD a real rival to the traditional hard drive. Once that issue is taken care of and as people start buying them (probably in business/serer markets) then the prices will reach (realistic) consumer levels which will then lead to more improvements while maintaining sensible prices.
Comment by EdArch at 7:22pm 27th May 2008
Why dont they just concentrate on making its manufacturing costs cheaper!! before concentrating on making it bigger... for now i'll just do what makes sence and stay well away from SSD.
Comment by NikoBellic at 4:39pm 27th May 2008
How much it costs to manufacture these SSD's, somehow I cant see it being near as much as they sell them for.... Samsung need to make the move towards making SSD's more affordable rather that hugely expensive.
Comment by D_Cypher at 4:34pm 27th May 2008
scan sells a 256GB SSD for almost 4 qrand, while a hard drive twice as big can be picked up for just over 40 quid: 100x less. i think most people will be sticking with hard drives for quite a while yet
Comment by soddit113 at 4:20pm 27th May 2008
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