Solid-state drives are dropping in price slowly but surely, and Samsung today took another step in delivering its promise of "a second stage of [storage] evolution".
The South Korean electronics giant confirmed that it has began mass production of its 1.8in and 2.5in MLC-based SSDs in 64GiB and 128GiB capacities.
Despite utilising the slower (and cheaper) multi-level cell technology, the drives provide read and write speeds of 90MiB/s and 70MiB/s, respectively. Putting to rest any battery-saving doubts, Samsung lists power consumption to be as little as 0.2Watts in standby and 0.5Watts when active.
The 128GiB drive measures 100mm x 69.8mm x 9.5mm, and features brushed metallic casing. Samsung claims the drive will last "approximately 20 times longer than the generally accepted 4-5 year life span of a notebook PC hard drive".
Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc, said:
With the 64 GB and 128 GB MLC SSDs, we are satisfying the density requirements of most business users and many PC enthusiasts, who will appreciate not only the performance gains and added reliability, but also the more attractive pricing.
Samsung's SSD ambitions will take another step later this year when it plans to begin production of its 256GiB model. Though the pricing of Samsung's drives isn't yet known, an increase in production can only mean a decrease in cost.
If you're still on the fence when it comes to SSDs, click here to watch a simply brilliant Samsung demonstration video - it sells itself.
