V-NAND
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Samsung crams 100 layers and more speed into its latest SSD
Samsung has started mass production on solid state drives (SSDs) that feature the company's sixth-generation 256GB three-bit vertical NAND memory. This means the drives come with an industry first 100 layers of NAND cells, a writing speed of 450 microseconds and a reading response time of 45 microseconds. Compared to Samsung's previous 90-layer SSDs, performance is up 10 percent and power consumption down 15 percent, according to the company.
Samsung is building a high-speed 4TB SSD for everyone
When Samsung unveiled its first-ever 1-terabit flash chip, it promised that massive SSD storage devices would soon follow. As promised, it's now producing 4TB SSDs, and best of all, these drives are not for cloud companies or enterprises. "Samsung's new 4-bit SATA SSD will herald a massive move to terabyte-SSDs for consumers," said executive VP of memory sales Jaesoo Han.
Samsung's high-capacity V-NAND memory is perfect for massive SSDs
Just over four years since it unveiled the first 3D vertical NAND memory, Samsung has developed its first 1 terabit (Tb) V-NAND chip. The flash memory technology, used in devices ranging from smartphones to digital cameras, will launch next year. As its name suggests, V-NAND boasts a vertically stacked structure with greater density than memory cells placed on a single, 2D plane. The result is more speed, up to ten times more reliability, and less chance of a breakdown. As with its 256 gigabit consumer SSDs, Samsung's new chips will probably find their way into your next laptop, and maybe even future phones. That's not all, Samsung also announced that the 1Tb chip will enable a single V-NAND package with 2 terabytes of memory capacity. As you might have guessed, that could mean more bang for your buck when it comes to SSDs for home PCs.
Samsung launches its fastest mainstream SSD yet
Samsung has just launched the 950 Pro, its first consumer SSD that puts vertical NAND (V-NAND) tech into a gumstick-sized M.2 PCI Express device. The result, as you might guess, is speed. The 512GB model, which costs a reasonable $350, can read at 2.5GB/s and write at 1.5GB/s, easily beating the company's last speed champ, the SM951 SSD. It's also Samsung's first mainstream drive to use NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express), an interface designed specifically for SSDs to help them sip less power and last longer. As a result, the 512GB model is warrantied to write up to 400TB of data. The drives use Samsung's 2nd-generation 32-layer V-NAND, not the 48-layer chips it recently announced.
Samsung's 256-gigabit chip puts multi-terabyte flash drives in your PC
Think that Samsung's 2TB solid-state drives are pretty capacious? They're just the start of something bigger. The Korean tech giant has started manufacturing the first 256-gigabit (32GB) 3D vertical flash memory, doubling its previous capacity record. The new tech should turn multi-terabyte SSDs into practical options for your home PC, and help phone makers cram more storage into tight spaces. You might get more bang for your buck, to boot -- Samsung's manufacturing is 40 percent more productive, so you likely won't pay twice as much for twice the headroom. The company plans to make this 256-gigabit flash through the rest of 2015, so you'll probably see it crop up in a lot of products (from Samsung and otherwise) over the months ahead.
Samsung brings 2TB solid-state drives to your home PC
You no longer have to bend over backwards to get more than a terabyte of fast, flash-based storage in your home computer. Samsung is shipping 2TB versions of its 850 Evo and 850 Pro solid-state drives, giving you as much capacity as a decent-sized spinning hard drive while maintaining that all-important SSD speed. They're only intended for desktops at the moment (they only use standard SATA connections), but Samsung is promising similarly cavernous models that are specifically designed for the mSATA and M.2 formats used in laptops. Just be prepared to pay dearly for these no-compromise drives right now -- the 'standard' 2TB 850 Evo is officially priced at $800, while the slightly faster, longer-lasting 850 Pro could easily break the bank at $1,000.
Samsung's first portable SSD packs fast storage for relatively little cash
You don't exactly have a ton of options when it comes to portable solid-state drives. You can get fast performance or high capacity at a halfway affordable price, but rarely both. Samsung thinks it can strike that tricky balance with its first-ever external option, the Portable SSD T1. The USB 3.0 storage is based on the same speedy-yet-cheap V-NAND chips as the 850 EVO drive you might buy for your gaming PC, letting it hold a large chunk of your files without devastating your wallet or slowing down -- it reads and writes at 450 MB/s, or just about desktop-level speeds. The line starts off modestly with a 250GB drive that costs $180, but you can opt for 500GB ($300) or 1TB ($600) if you have a lot of games or movies to carry around. That's still expensive compared to spinning hard disks, but it's a relative steal for the performance. Look for the T1 to hit US stores around mid-January.
Samsung's new consumer SSDs shoot to the top of the benchmark league
For the last year or so, Samsung has been touting a "paradigm shift" in the way it constructs flash memory: from a horizontal to a vertical arrangement of cells, or what it calls 3D V-NAND. Now, judging from reviews of the first V-NAND consumer SSDs, the 850 Pro range, it looks like this shift has resulted in a geniune and unequivocal boost to performance. Compared to synthetic and real-world scores from rival drives, made by the likes of Intel and Crucial, Sammy's 850 Pro "led the pack almost across the board," according to HotHardware.
Samsung unveils first SSDs with 3D V-NAND memory, but only for enterprise
Well, that was quick. Samsung said it was producing the world's first 3D vertical NAND memory just a week ago, and it has already started building the first SSDs based on that memory. Unfortunately, they're not meant for the enthusiast crowd: the new 480GB and 960GB drives are instead designed for enterprise-class servers, where V-NAND's blend of high capacity and reliability makes the most sense. Don't be too forlorn, however. Samsung promises that the new memory will eventually reach PC-oriented SSDs, which could bring spacious flash storage to a much wider audience.
Samsung ships first 3D vertical NAND flash, defies memory scaling limits
The main challenge in producing higher-capacity flash storage is one of scale -- as density goes up, so does cell interference and the chances of a breakdown. Samsung may have overcome that barrier (if temporarily) by mass-producing the first 3D vertical NAND memory, or V-NAND. Instead of putting memory cells on a conventional 2D plane, the company reworked its long-serving Charge Trap Flash technology to create a 3D cell structure with more breathing room. The result is flash that improves both reliability and speed at higher densities; Samsung claims that the new technology is 2-10X more reliable than its ancestors, and twice as quick at writing data. The initial V-NAND chip offers a 128-gigabit (16GB) capacity that we've seen before, but its underlying technique should scale quickly when a chip can include as many as 24 stacked cell layers. Although Samsung hasn't named the first devices with V-NAND inside, we won't be surprised if our next phone or SSD is particularly spacious.
