Samsung readies flash memory for 32 GB solid state disk

Seoul (Korea) - Samsung said that it has begun sampling of 50 nm NAND flash memory chips that are required to build the long announced 32 GB 2.5" solid state disk (SSD). The flash drive is expected to replace traditional hard drives in higher end notebooks and offer significant advantages in data transfer rates as well as power consumption.

Samsung’s hybrid hard drive and SSDs ...

The new memory chips bump the density of the previous NAND flash generation from 8 Gb(it) to 16 Gb. In a 16 x 16 Gb configuration, the device will reach the originally promised capacity of 32 GB. Previously promised prototypes of the 2.5" SSD used 4 Gb and 8 Gb chips, which resulted in capacities of 8 GB and 16 GB, respectively.

The company first announced plans to ship a SSD in March 2006 and since then has provided very few updates on the likely availability of the drive - other than the device will be introduced around the launch date of Windows Vista. Samsung recently received the Windows Hardware Qualification Lab (WHQL) for the SSD ; mass production of the 16 Gb chips is planned to ramp in the current quarter.

The manufacturer claims that its upcoming 1.8" and 2.5" SSDs will reach data read speeds of 57 MB/s and a data write speed of 32 MB/s, which would be more than double the performance levels of a typical 1.8" hard disk drive. In a recent test conducted by Tom’s Hardware Guide, a 32 GB Samsung SSD posted impressive performance numbers, but did not quite match the firm’s claims : Read speed came in at about 50 MB/s and write speeds averaged 29 MB/s.

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