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256GB Samsung SSD hits mass production
by Cyril Kowaliski — 11:05 AM on November 20, 2008

Samsung has announced that it's now mass-producing a 256GB solid-state drive. Other companies have already unveiled 256GB solid-state offerings, but this announcement has more to do with performance than with capacity: Samsung claims its new baby is the "best overall performing SSD for PCs."

You'd have a hard time disproving that claim from the specifications alone, since Samsung quotes sequential read rates of 220MB/s and sequential write rates of 200MB/s. As the company itself points out, other SSDs tend to have a greater gap between their read and write speeds. Even Intel's speedy X-25M SSDs only have a top write speed rating of 70MB/s, compared to 250MB/s reads.

Samsung says having one of its 256GB SSDs in your notebook would be "analogous to having a 15,000rpm drive"—except without the power consumption and heat, since the drive only draws 1.1W of power. Considering current prices for high-end SSDs, though, it might actually cost more than a 15K-RPM drive. Still, some may find that mix of performance, capacity, and power efficiency pretty tempting, especially since Samsung also provides optional full-disc encryption support.