The Solid State Drive market looks to break significant ground in 2009 and the first 256GB models with decent specifications are starting to appear. Now that Toshiba has unveiled its coming family of SSDs it has no real problem matching and surpassing other companies thanks to its new 43nm MLC NAND flash chips. The flagship of Toshiba’s new SSD line is the most spacious 2.5″ consumer drive so far, with 512GB storage capacity, which means we’re really closing on the peak capacities of the mechanical harddrives.
Toshiba THNS512GG8B will get some lesser siblings with 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacity where all have one thing in common, really great write speeds. We’ve grown accustomed to the high read rates of MLC-based SSDs and with 240MB/s Toshiba’s models are on par with the competition. The write rate is starting to improve with the latest generation of MLC-based devices.
Toshiba has specified the maximal sequential write speed at 200MB/s, something which only a few of the fastest SLC drives can achieve.
The only drawback of Toshiba’s new Solid State Drives, beside the presumed high price, is the availability.
“In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. Samples of the new drives will be available in first quarter (January to March) 2009, with mass production in the second quarter (April to June) 2009.”
