Samsung Ramps Up Tablet Storage To 512GB

Samsung is targeting massive memory boosts for tablets and laptops after starting volume production of 512GB solid state drives (SSDs), it said yesterday.

On top of the great leap in storage, the high-performance PM830 SSDs quicken boot-up time to around 10 seconds and, according to Samsung, data transmission of 6GB/s means up to five DVD video files can be downloaded in less than a minute. The SSDs are also available in 256GB and 128GB densities and support the Serial ATA (SATA) 3.0 interface.

Bigger than your average

This represents a significant increase on typical tablet capacity. The iPad’s maximum capacity is currently a 64GB flash drive. French tablet manufacturer Archos recently launched a tablet range with a novel 250GB hard-drive.

The PM830 doubles the performance of previous Samsung SATA 3Gb/s drive, with sequential read speeds of 500 megabytes per second (MB/s) and sequential write speeds of 350MB/s. The older models will be replaced with the new SSD by the end of the year. The Samsung memory is provided by a 20 nanometre class 32GB multi-level cell NAND memory chip with a toggle DDR interface.

“Samsung’s new line up of advanced SSDs will raise the performance bar to the next level for ultra-slim notebooks and tablets and accelerate growth of the market for high-performance SSDs,” said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing for Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics.

“The industry is expected to quickly embrace SATA 6Gb/s-based SSDs, which also will help increase market interest in 256GB and higher densities significantly,” he added.

The Korean firm is also setting a high level of security with an AES 256-bit encryption algorithm to protect data from unauthorised access.

Growing in popularity

Samsung’s competitors in the space include the likes of Toshiba, which this week introduced its new Ultrastar SSD400M drives with a 6GB serial-attached SCSI (SAS)  interface in capacities of 200GB and 400 GB, as well as Intel, SanDisk and Seagate.

And SSDs, although currently still considered expensive, are expected to become a common storage option in the coming 12-18 months as prices fall. Lower capacity SSDs are already utilized in some laptops in order to accelerate boot-up times.

According to analysts at IDC, the global outlook for client-side SSDs is expected to grow ten-fold from 11 million units in 2011 to 100 million units in 2015. The use of NAND in 256GB SSDs is also expected to more than double from 19 percent of all NAND used in SSDs in 2011 to 42 percent in 2015.