December 18th, 2008
Toshiba launches first 512GB solid state drive
Toshiba announced today the industry’s first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD, based on 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND, according to a press release.
The drive is part of a new family of 43nm NAND SSDs, which also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules.
The new drives are intended for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems, and will be showcased at CES 2009. Samples of the new drives will be available in Q1 2009, with mass production in Q2 2009.
According to the press release:
The utilize an advanced MLC controller, which is also compatible with further advanced processes, that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to optimize performance, reliability and endurance. The drives enable improved system responsiveness with a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB per second (MBps)(2) and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps enabling an improvement in overall computing experience, and faster boot and application loading times. The drives also offer AES data encryption to prevent unauthorized data access.
Specs and product information can be found here.
Toshiba said it expects SSDs will gain significant traction in the market in 2009, growing to approximately 10% of the notebook market by 2010, and 25% of the notebook market by 2012.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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