Samsung announced what appears to be its first 512GB SSD (solid state disk), utilizing "high-performance toggle-mode" DDR NAND flash. The device provides three times the performance of a typical hard disk drive, and extends battery life even further than previous SSDs, the company claims.

Samsung's new 512GB SSD (left) appears to be the company's first to offer such high capacity, though similarly sized offerings have previously been announced by Adata (the XPG) and Toshiba (the THNS512GG8BB), among a few others.

Demonstrating how SSD performance has improved over last year's already speedy offerings, Samsung says its 512GB offering's SATA 3.0Gb/sec. controller generates a maximum sequential read speed of 250MB/sec. and a 220MB/sec.sequential write speed. (In 2009, Adata's 512GB offering was claimed to have sequential and write speeds of 230MB/sec. and 160MB/sec., respectively.)

Samsung further adds that it developed a low-power controller specifically for the "toggle-mode" DDR NAND flash memory employed in the new drive.

It's said the resulting power throttling capability enables the drive's performance without any increase in power consumption over a 40nm-class 16Gb NAND-based 256GB SSD. The controller also analyzes frequency of use and preferences of the user, automatically activating a low-power mode that can extend a notebook's battery life for an hour or more, the company says.

According to Samsung, the new 512GB SSD uses a "30 nanometer-class" 32 gigabit chip it began producing last November. We can't say exactly what the company means by this description: In April, Samsung announced it would produce "20-nm class" 32 gigabit chips later this year, but one analyst called the claim "deceptively generalized" and vouchsafed that the forthcoming chips will actually use a 27nm manufacturing process. (For more details, see our earlier coverage, here.)

Regardless, Samsung says its new SSD will show an approximately nine-fold improvement in random performance over hard disk drives. Also, an intelligent operation management function optimizes the SSD's background working environment, and supports Windows 7's Trim feature, the company adds.

Dong-Soo Jun, a Samsung executive vice president responsible for memory marketing, stated, "The highly advanced features and characteristics of our new SSD were obtained as a direct result of an aggressive push for further development of our NAND flash technology, our SSD controller and our supportive SSD firmware. Early introduction of this state-of-the-art toggle DDR solution will enable Samsung to play a major role in securing faster market acceptance of the new wave of high-end SSD technology."

Availability

Samsung says it will begin volume production of the new 512GB SSD next month, but did not volunteer information on end user availability and pricing. More information may be found on the company's website, here.

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