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Hardware Samsung Aims Low with New SSD Line
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - August 27, 2008 3:09 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 21 comment(s) - last by onelittleindia.. on Aug 28 at 2:23 PM
New SSDs are targeting low-density, low-cost computers

Samsung announced a new line of SSDs today that it is aiming at the low-cost PC market that needs low-density drives. The new Samsung SSDs are very compact and should work very well for netbook and ultra mobile systems. Samsung says the SSDs are 30% smaller than the typical SSD on the market today and use the SATA II interface.

The SSDs will be offered in three capacities -- 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB. Samsung promises that the price of the SSDs will be low, and the price needs to be low to reach the target market Samsung is looking for. However, Samsung did not comment on pricing for the line.

The SSDs are built using Samsung's multi-level cell (MLC) NAND chips. Samsung uses four individual 16 gigabit MLC NAND chips in its 8GB SSD. The SSDs all have the same read speed of 90MB/s. The write speed of the SSDs varies depending on the storage capacity. The 32GB SSD has the highest write speed, which Samsung quotes as 70MB/s. The 16GB SSD has a write speed of 45MB/s and the 8GB SSD has a write speed of 25MB/s.

Samsung VP of Memory Marketing Jim Elliott said in a statement, "We’ve refined our manufacturing techniques and redesigned our low-density SSDs to get what the low-priced PC market is looking for in the way of improved cost, performance and availability."

Samsung says that the new SSDs will enter mass production starting in September 2008. Samsung will need to be very price competitive to match the low cost SSDs on the market, such as the OCZ Core series.

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8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By dickeywang on 8/27/2008 4:20:39 PM , Rating: 3
Did they just literally put a SD card into a box and call it a SSD?




RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By psychobriggsy on 8/27/2008 4:36:58 PM , Rating: 2
I'd like to see an SD card that can read at 90MB/s.

Still, looks like they're using up old flash memory for this - a 2GB chip isn't exactly stellar these days!

The important issue is that they have a standard SATA connector (data + power), but they're only about 1/3rd as deep. Dunno why there were no images with the article, but they do look quite compact.


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By rs3 on 8/27/2008 9:23:05 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
I'd like to see an SD card that can read at 90MB/s.


Judging from how the performance scales with capacity, it looks like all they did is RAID several cards together in the larger model. For example:

8 GB SSD = 1x8GB SD card @ 25 MB/sec write speed
16 GB SSD = 2x8GB SD cards in RAID-0 (or equivalent striping algorithm) @ 45 MB/sec write speed
32 GB SSD = 4x8GB SD cards in RAID-0 (or equivalent striping algorithm) @ 90 MB/sec write speed

The performance scaling matches pretty perfectly what one might expect if they were just using a striping solution across multiple 25 MB/sec SD cards. In fact, if you assume a 10% overhead for the RAID controller, you arrive at exactly the numbers they are quoting.


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By Urbanos on 8/27/2008 10:16:08 PM , Rating: 2
that's assuming you can get an SD card to sustain 25MB/s which just doesn't happen for 'affordable' prices.


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By Baov on 8/27/2008 11:32:08 PM , Rating: 2
8GB at 25MB/s CF cards can be had for less than 100$.


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By Baov on 8/27/2008 11:30:59 PM , Rating: 2
That's what i thought. And if the controler is just raiding, then power consumption would be quite high and there'll be no point in buying these.


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By zzeoss on 8/28/2008 1:56:31 AM , Rating: 1
Even if you explain the write speed, you don't explain the read speed you are replying to.
The article says that the 8GB uses 4x16gb chips, which you must remember: are slow MLC chips = 5-7MB/s write, 15-25MB/s read.
Then i think a mux/demux -or something like that- splits the signals to/from the 4 chips.
Now you're closer to the 25/90 MB/s


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By zzeoss on 8/28/2008 9:17:35 AM , Rating: 1
By psychobriggsy on 8/28/2008 9:39:53 AM , Rating: 2
My point was that in the photos of these drives that DailyTech omitted (but you can see at Tech Report, for example), the flash chips are soldered onto a PCB, there's no SD card anywhere. This removes the SD card's slow interconnect issues.


RE: 8GB with the speed of 25MB/s
By vapore0n on 8/27/2008 4:38:27 PM , Rating: 3
Super SD!


By onelittleindian on 8/28/2008 2:23:30 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Did they just literally put a SD card into a box and call it a SSD?
That's called a "cost-saving measure" in marketing-speak.


WT$
By iNGEN on 8/27/2008 3:47:45 PM , Rating: 2
Their aiming low, that's great, but how low? I want to know price points.




RE: WT$
By someguy123 on 8/27/2008 3:53:48 PM , Rating: 2
there are no exact price points released, thats why the article refers to OCZ's pricing since it's one of the lowest in the SSD market.

i like that they're trying to get SSDs at low prices, but to be honest the performance is still subpar while the cost per gb is still rather high. obviously SSDs are incredibly fast at random access, but I hope these cheaper drives start getting sequential read/write speeds at least up to par even if they still cost more per gb than traditional drives.


RE: WT$
By jonmcc33 on 8/27/2008 3:55:42 PM , Rating: 2
They meant low performance...not price.


RE: WT$
By amdwilliam1985 on 8/27/2008 3:58:32 PM , Rating: 2
yep, judging from their write speed, they are aiming at low performance market.


RE: WT$
By obeseotron on 8/27/2008 4:02:45 PM , Rating: 3
It's MLC, so yes, these are budget drives. Fast drives use the more expensive SLC. That said, the controller chip and firmware on a drive has a much bigger impact on performance than anything else.


RE: WT$
By tastyratz on 8/28/2008 10:43:37 AM , Rating: 2
No they are high performance... very high.
Anything less and its vista's fault.


meh
By 5c8wc4 on 8/27/2008 4:09:37 PM , Rating: 2
I was hoping they would lower their prices on the existing drives. OCZ is on the right track. SSD's in general are still expensive though even the ocz core series.




your comment subject
By Visual on 8/28/2008 3:49:53 AM , Rating: 2
If two of the 32GB drives are cheaper than the 64GB OCZ Core, it is a win. One can raid them and get faster speeds than the Core.

And what form-factor are these drives?




Blah Blah
By electriple9 on 8/28/2008 3:51:14 AM , Rating: 2
Where is the price for the low cost ssd.
Thanks




Samsung-OCZ
By teldar on 8/28/2008 6:45:57 AM , Rating: 2
Aren't the OCZ drives just rebranded Samsung drives in the first place.

And if they were trying to compete with the OCZ drives, it wouldn't be with these pieces of crap. Even the Core series were significantly faster than these things, let alone the Core 2 ones.

I think what they're trying to compete with is the craptacular drives in things like the eeepc and other low end laptops/nettops.




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