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Hardware Samsung Cranks Out 128GB MLC SSD
Brandon Hill (Blog) - January 6, 2008 6:34 PM

24 comment(s) - last by PandaBear.. on Jan 8 at 6:26 PM

Samsung doubles its SSD capacity

Two months ago, Samsung announced its new SATA II-based 64GB solid-state disk (SSD). The 64GB SSD promised read speeds of 120MB/sec and write speeds of 100MB/sec.

Today, Samsung is doubling the capacity of its latest SATA II SSD offering to 128GB. Instead of relying on single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, the new 128GB offering makes use of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash.

Unfortunately, performance dropped with the new 128 SSD -- read speeds are down to 100MB/sec while write speeds hover at 70MB/sec.

“Our SSD can be used by the widest range of corporate notebooks, particularly where additional storage is needed beyond what is typical in most business applications,” said Jim Elliott, director of flash memory marketing for Samsung Semiconductor.

Samsung's new 128GB SSD pales in comparison to BiTMICRO's massive 832GB SSD which was recently announced. Samsung, however, has the advantage when it comes to availability and pricing. Samsung's 128GB SSD will be available in the first half of 2008 with pricing of at least a couple thousand dollars.

BiTMICRO's 832GB SSD, on the other hand, won't be mass produced until the latter half of 2008 and will likes cost tens of thousands of dollars.

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Performance not capacity

By knitecrow on 1/6/2008 6:44:23 PM , Rating: 2

32GB is enough for vista/XP and essential programs on the go. I wish they would work on getting the performance up there with MRTON drives.

RE: Performance not capacity

By Gnoad on 1/6/2008 6:49:26 PM , Rating: 2

I generally agree, but 32GB is way too low. Something like 80GB should be the bare minimum nowadays.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Mithan on 1/6/2008 7:08:04 PM , Rating: 5

I agree, I have a 72 gig Raptor and I would easily buy one of these if it was in that size, with better performance and roughly equal price.

Anyways, within 5 years these drives will no doubt be the norm, at affordable prices, awesome performance and huge capacities.

Then the world will end on Dec 21, 2012 and it wont matter ;)

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RE: Performance not capacity

By T4RTER S4UCE on 1/6/2008 9:58:12 PM , Rating: 2

I disagree. If you want an on-the-go computer 32GB is more than enough, I still get by with an old 40GB Laptop, and that holds ALL my videos, pictures, music and programs.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By mindless1 on 1/7/2008 6:08:00 AM , Rating: 2

32GB will be sufficient if you think in terms of having 32GB available instead of in terms of accepting the increasing bloat of newer applications within the context of having a larger mechanical HDD to store it all.

Most people dont need every file they've ever come across on their laptop, there are other options for supplimental storage whether it be WAN/internet HTTP or FTP, external, flash card, DVD, network share or fileserver, etc. Suppose you simply MUST watch some movie on your laptop. Doesn't it have a DVD player? Doesn't it have networking which is sufficient for the bitrate of watching a movie? If not, 32GB SSD can still hold a 4GB ISO or Divx it, if only you choose to keep some free space when deciding what goes on the laptop.

Snapping our fingers, sure an infinitely sized SSD would be nice, but not really needed. People did manage to get by and do quite a bit before HDDs even reached 32GB.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By ethana2 on 1/7/2008 7:10:12 PM , Rating: 2

Performance++.
As an Ubuntu user, I say 4, 8, or 16 GB is fine. At those rates, you can't afford the bloat of an OS designed by 'motivationally challenged individuals'.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Christopher1 on 1/6/2008 7:46:09 PM , Rating: 1

Actually, with all the essential programs I have.... I'd say more like twice that amount. Vista is only 10GB usually or a little more, but add in Norton Ghost, Norton Internet Security, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Tweak Now PowerPack 2006, Quicktime, Microsoft Office and a few other things.... you are getting up into the multiple 10's of Gigabytes very quickly.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Azsen on 1/6/2008 7:58:37 PM , Rating: 4

"Norton Internet Security, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Quicktime"

Ughh. Nortons is a bloated piece of junk, you don't need Ad-aware and spybot if you run Firefox and Quicktime ughh try Quicktime alternative.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Oobu on 1/6/2008 8:08:33 PM , Rating: 2

Get rid of Norton and use NOD32 from Eset as an Antivirus. It has a much smaller footprint.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Ringold on 1/6/2008 8:10:57 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed. My ESET Smart Security folder is 29.5mb. Virtually nothing even on a smaller hard disk. NOD32 by itself is likely even smaller.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Ringold on 1/6/2008 8:09:04 PM , Rating: 2

Actually, if I take my Program Files (x86) folder and strip out the games, it includes ESET, a couple anti-spyware apps, MS Office 2007, a few DVD-related apps, K-Lite Codec pack .. several other goodies, and it's under 2GB.

Of course, it's 28GB if I include installed games, but I think the OP was speaking along the lines of a mobile laptop. Plus, I only play about 5gb worth of those anyway.. Got enough HD space I dont worry about removing them.

Another 400mb+ hanging out in Program Files.

No idea if I could go in an do liposuction on C:\Windows, but it eats 15.3gb. Windows + P.F. = 17.3gb on what I'd consider a fully-capable Windows environment; multiple web browsers, can view almost any media file under the sun, rip DVDs, secured with AV and firewall, full Office capability..

Add 5gb for games, and then round up to 32gb because it's a geek-approved number, and you've got a complete rig for most people that can game and still do a little of everything most people use a computer for, but would still need seperate external storage to do more then 1 or 2 large tasks at a time. For a laptop, that'd be peachy.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By JoshuaBuss on 1/7/08, Rating: -1

RE: Performance not capacity

By Alexstarfire on 1/6/2008 8:16:36 PM , Rating: 2

Well that's too bad for you. Including all the essentials, being the OS, PF, programs, and Documents and Settings folder I easily clock in at under 10GB, probably in the 5-6GB range. I have XP Pro though.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By iwod on 1/6/2008 9:47:05 PM , Rating: 2

Me too. With XP, You have Windows @ 2GB, Page file with 2Gb
Office, AntiVius, some Adobe Suit etc @ 4Gb.
Let say some Documents, Photos, cache, user files, Internet offline file... @ 10Gb.

That still only add up to 18Gb. Plus Another 2Gb for Buffer Zone up to 20Gb.

That is still 12Gb left. So long as you dont store all the mp3s, movies / video, games etc 32Gb is plenty of space for a Main HD.

Of course Vista is a different Matter. And will put on another 4 - 6Gb.

I suppose many are worry about 32Gb being on the borderline.
48Gb or 64Gb would be much better.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By retrospooty on 1/6/2008 11:47:42 PM , Rating: 2

Or just get rid of all that Norton crap and get a real protection software that protects better at a small fraction the size like Nod32 or Kaspersky.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By mindless1 on 1/7/2008 6:19:20 AM , Rating: 2

Vista - don't use it. XP can be installed to take up 1GB. DOn't believe me? Well I've done that.

Ghost - needs about what, 3MB (two floppies worth) of files to actually do what you'd need on a laptop?

Norton Internet Security - you wrote essential so this gets cut.

Ad-Aware - Are you kidding? Why are you listing things that take up a mere ~ 9MB? Let's say you have twenty of these small apps not just Ad-Aware. IE- 20 * 9MB

Spybot - included in above 20x such apps figure.

TweakNow Powerpack - also included in 20X figure

Quicktime - also in 20X figure

Office - pick one that isn't overly bloated, being generous that's 1GB

Few other things - since they weren't even mentioned, probably even less space taken but let's call them 1GB.

The total:

1GB + (20 * 9MB) + 1GB + 1GB = 3.2GB

Congratulations, you've used only 10% of the drive you said was half the size you needed.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By mindless1 on 1/7/2008 6:26:31 AM , Rating: 2

DOH! My mind was still stuck in a conversation about 32GB SSD, not 128GB. Regardless, as I've shown it can be done with far less space than some people imagine it would take.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By Ringold on 1/7/2008 1:30:08 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Office - pick one that isn't overly bloated, being generous that's 1GB

I bought the Student edition since I don't use Access or the couple others, but Office 2007 with Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Office's little set of 'tools' comes to 302mb.

So really, with XP and the above you're talking about a fully functional computer, more or less, that consumes less than 3gb.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By iwod on 1/6/2008 9:51:57 PM , Rating: 3

Yes. Performance not Capacity. I would rather Hard Disk maker start to make HD more power efficient, Much Higher Capacity, cooler and quieter and most importantly more reliable rather then bumping up speed / rpm. And just let SSD take the performance role for Main Storage.

At the same price I would rather buy a 1.5TB HD which only runs at 4200 rpm then a 1TB HD runs 7200 rpm

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RE: Performance not capacity

By AnnihilatorX on 1/7/2008 6:30:58 AM , Rating: 2

Install the big programs on a mechanical HDD.

I am running Vista on an Mtron 16GB. Disabled Virtual Memory on it (Used mechanical HDD instead), disabled Hibernation. Installed AVG, driver software that starts up in Windows in Mtron.

I have a healthy 2 GB left.

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RE: Performance not capacity

By The Sword 88 on 1/7/2008 8:43:23 PM , Rating: 2

How is the performance on that thing?

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Endurance..

By BSMonitor on 1/7/2008 4:55:37 PM , Rating: 2

Has anyone ever managed kill cells in one of these? I heard that SSD have ~1000 writes?

Say you did use one of these for DVD/Video Editing. Over the course of a couple years, you could hit a number of the cells 1000 times... What happens then?

RE: Endurance..

By AnnihilatorX on 1/7/2008 7:13:21 PM , Rating: 2

The write levelling algorithm are quite good.
Also how old was those figures? I think they are better than that nowadays.

I think Mtron claims that their SSD lasts >140 years @ 50GB write per day

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RE: Endurance..

By PandaBear on 1/8/2008 6:26:06 PM , Rating: 2

Mtron uses SLC so it can last 100k cycles of erase/program each block.

The MLC from Samsung I have seen in the lab only guarantees 500 cycles, but typically last 3000, so no matter how much wear leveling is in there, if you use all the space alot (i.e. in server or as a swap partition), then it won't last that long, for sure.

I think this MLC type drives can only be used for video or light duty app like laptop. For high performance computing like workstation or server, MLC won't cut it at all.

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