Toshiba Launches First 512 GB SSD
Toshiba announces the industry's first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD.
Just weeks before CES 2009, a time when companies get to showcase their newest products side by side, Toshiba pulls an ace out of its sleeve by unveiling its new 512 GB SSD. The new drive has double the capacity of any previously announced 2.5-inch SSD, but unfortunately it seems the drive will be just for show right now, as mass production is not planned until the second quarter of 2009.
Alongside the new 512 GB SSD, Toshiba also announced today new 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB SSDs in 2.5-inch, 1.8-inch and flash module form-factors. All the new SSDs use Toshiba's second-generation SSD technology, featuring 43 nm Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND memory, along with fast sequential read and write speeds of up to 240 MB/s and 200 MB/s, respectively.
The new SSDs also include AES data encryption, a Mean Time to Fail (MTTF) of one million hours and are equipped with a serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s interface. Samples of the new drives will be available in the first quarter of 2009, but as for price, all we know is that Toshiba will be targeting consumers with these new drives. Toshiba expects SSDs to make up 10-percent of the notebook market by 2010 and 25-percent of the notebook market by 2012. With the introduction of high-performance 512 GB SSDs, the only advantage traditional notebook hard drives still seem to have any more is a low cost.
Please find below a chart comparing a select few high-capacity SSDs. Speeds are according to manufacture's specifications.
| Sizes | Max Seq. Read | Max Seq. Write | Form Factor | SSD Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toshiba's New SSD | 64 to 512 GB | 240 MB/s | 200 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
| Toshiba's Previous SSD | 256 GB | 120 MB/s | 70 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
| Super Talent UltraDrive ME | 16 to 256 GB | 200 MB/s | 160 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
| Samsung SSD | 256 GB | 220 MB/s | 200 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
| OCZ Vertex | 30 to 250 GB | 200 MB/s | 160 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
| Micron SSD | 256 GB | 250 MB/s | 100 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
| Intel X25-E | 32, 64 GB | 250 MB/s | 170 MB/s | 2.5-inch | SLC |
| Intel X25-M | 80, 160 GB | 250 MB/s | 70 MB/s | 2.5-inch | MLC |
Tom's Hardware will be covering CES 2009 (January 8-11th), so be sure to check back then for more details and product photos.

So yea, it's nice to see the sizes going up rapidly. I for one really want to get the 128gig versions, as in 4 of them, in a RAID0. Hopefully these newer larger capacities will make the prices come down. Soon!
Very best,
Micron is supposed to release an SSD drive that has 1 GB read speed and 500 some write speed...
I'll get it too as long as its not like 500 million $ a gig
I'm pretty sure it is: 3.0gbps /8 = 375MB/s. I've seen it as 300MB/s online...not sure if they can't divide or if it really is a limit of the interface. Usually theoretical throughput just uses math...without considering that you won't get those numbers, so who knows.
2) I hereby "unveil" a 1TB 32nm SSD to be manufactured in my house.
- Neither one can actually be bought
- Neither one has hard pricing
- Neither one has any hard availability date
Toshiba is a tough competitor but so far I've matched them on this one...
Actually it's 384MBps. 3Gbps = 3072Mbps = 385MBps. So we may see SATA 6Gb/s becoming more widespread in the next year, I certainly hope new SATA technology is being developed at the moment.
SATA uses 2 bits of parity, so 3Gb of total bandwidth actually equates to 3Gb/10=300MB/s. This is further decreased by a 20% encoding overhead, for an actual potential speed of 240MB/s. This means that yes, these new SSD's will be riding the very limit of the current standard and will soon be targetted more for the new SATA 6Gb/s standard.
Keep in mind, this is only the beginning.
LMAO!
Your missing one thing, CES, you get your 1TB There and then you sure will beat Toshiba. Till then keep working on it hard!
Am I missing something? Where's Patriot? Where's G.Skill? There are a few other SSD manufacturers that aren't listed in this table. We nee more SSD reviews!
'Cmon up to work Tom's!
100000 i/ops and 800MBps is nothing to sneeze at, and sata 3 can't handle it already in real world numbers. Considering this is the first gen hardware, it does not bode well for the "next gen" standards that are supposed to pump data with these drives.
Its time to main-line the data with a 16x pci-e slot, and maybe piggyback the drives ala sli to share the bandwidth and leave slots for more graphics.