Toshiba Launches Industry's First 512 GB SSD

December 18, 2008 by John Messina Toshiba Launches Industry's First 512 GB SSD

(PhysOrg.com) -- Toshiba announced today the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSD's based on 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND.

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.

These 2nd generation SSD's offer increased capacity and performance for notebook computers. They utilize an advanced MLC controller that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to optimize performance, reliability and endurance.

These drives enable improved system responsiveness with a maximum sequential read speed of 240MBps and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps. This faster response time enhances overall computing experience and allows for faster boot and application loading. The drives also offer AES data encryption to prevent unauthorized data access.

Toshiba as well as many market analysts expect SSD's to begin significant deployment in the market in 2009. With further growth, in the notebook market, expected around 10% by 2010 and 25% by 2012.

The new drives provide a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems. These SSD's will be showcased at International CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 - 11, 2009. Mass production will begin in the second quarter of 2009 (April to June).

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earls - Dec 18, 2008
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Awesome, no word on pricing though. :/ Hopefully a bit more competitive with HDD... 64GB at ~$125-$250 ain't cutting it.

lol at the pic!
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dirk_bruere - Dec 18, 2008
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Access times?
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phystic - Dec 19, 2008
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i'm wondering about the price range as well. And whats with those still-slow read/write times? I want a 4-drive-SSD-raidArray, but not with 240mbps :-P
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Palli - Dec 19, 2008
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phystic, it's 240MBps, that's bytes, not bits...who came up with bits vs. bytes anyways! We should call the bytes something that doesn't start with the letter "b"
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Falcon - Dec 19, 2008
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still too slow considering sata II write speed of 2GBps on current hard drives
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Palli - Dec 19, 2008
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Falcon, Sata II interface specs have nothing to do with actual disk read/write speeds. At 240MBps, you can copy a 700MB movie file in under 3 seconds (when copying between separate drives). That's way beyond conventional hard drives.
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earls - Dec 19, 2008
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Agreed. Spec != Performance.

Check out this comparison of a SSD 140/80 to VelociRaptor drive.

http://hothardwar...ak_Peek/
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ShadowRam - Dec 22, 2008
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Problem is the drive controller.
Is it fixed? Most low cost SSD right now have a bugged drive controller that ends up being lower performance than normal HD
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DrMorris - Dec 24, 2008
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Yeah, I see people boasting SATAs can write at 2Gbs a second, but whats the point if your DVD drive can't lift data that fast off of a disk to put on your hard drive or if you want to move data from your master drive to your slave drive at 2Gbs, but your CPU and mother board can only traffic data at 150Mbs? Sure. Maybe SATAs can read at 2Gbs, but the rest of the computer can't. Its like putting a Porsche engine in a 1980 Datsun.
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