We’d heard Toshiba was working on 512GB SSDs back in April, and the company’s delivering right before CES. The industry-first half-gig drive is the highlight of Tosh’s new line of 43nm MLC drives, which also includes 64GB, 128GB and 256GB units in both 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors — just right to pudge out your laptops and netbooks. No word on price, but you’ve got plenty of time to save up, as these won’t hit mass production until at least April.

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Toshiba announces 512GB SSD, other smaller SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get your flash here, red hot flash memory. Toshiba is now sampling its new 256GB SSD with a 120MB max read and 70MBps write via 3.0Gbps SATA interface — not the fastest consumer SSD but not not bad. This 2.5-inch slab measures just 3.0-mm thick and targets laptops looking to shed the 9.5-mm constraint presented by standard hard disks. Like Samsung, Tosh also announced new 8GB, 16GB and 32GB SATA flash modules aimed directly at the booming netbook market with speeds topping-out at 80MBps for reads and 50MBps for writes. All the drives feature MLC-based NAND which accounts for the less-than blazing SSD speeds. On the other hand, that should help keep the costs low when these things ship in quantity later this year.

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Intel’s keeping the announcements coming at this year’s IDF — today we got word that the company will launch its first SSDs in a month or so. The 1.8-inch X-18M and 2.5-inch X-25M drives will be targeted at laptops and MIDs and come in 80GB and 160GB sizes using MLC tech, while the 32GB and 64GB SLC-based X-25E is aimed at servers and will be out in 90 days. Intel hasn’t locked down pricing, but the M-series drives should cost about $8/GB, which would put the 160GB unit at a whopping $1,280 and the 80GB at $640. We’re hoping those estimates are skewed a little high — and Intel says there might be a cheaper 40GB unit on the way as well. We’ll see in a month, we suppose.

[Via Electronista]

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Indilinx just recently caught eyes with its Barefoot solid state drive controller, which has reportedly shown a read speed of 230MB/sec. Merely days later, it’s already talking about the next best thing. Said firm, along with Mosaid, is preparing for a third-generation of the controller for the SATA 3 interface, which will provide a mind-boggling 600MB/sec. Unfortunately, no other details were provided, but just in case you were terrified that the internal drive you purchase in 2013 wouldn’t transfer files any faster than the one you’re using now, at least you’ve one less worry on your mind.

[Thanks, Johnny]

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[Via TG Daily]

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With SSDs, there really is no “fast enough.” In the never-ending quest for more speed, Indilinx has just introduced its Barefoot solid state drive controller with 90-nanometer process technology. Said device has reportedly shown the “fastest read speed (230MB/sec) of all the products currently available in the market and supports the capacity up to 512GB with multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash.” Additionally, it plays nice with SATA 2.0 and flash memory from Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix and Intel / Micron. Sadly, mass production isn’t scheduled until Q4 of this year, so now you can sit on that vanilla HDD even longer as you wait for the future to arrive. Ugh, what a tease.

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Intel’s partner in solid state crime, Micron, just announced an update to its RealSSD lineup of SSDs. Based on the typically slower (and cheaper) MLC NAND process technology, the new 2.5-inch (up to 256GB) laptop and 1.8-inch (32GB to 128GB) ultra-portable storage slabs offer a 3Gbps SATA interface and ridiculous 250MBps read and 100MBps write speeds — yes, that’s fast, damn fast when you consider the 70MBps write and 90MBps read speeds of Samsung’s latest consumer oriented SSDs. They even best the listed read speeds of Samsung’s top-ender. Unfortunately, no prices were given (though it’s said to be “balanced price to performance”), but we should expect ‘em to hit the market in Q4 under the Lexar brand, and maybe even Seagate and Intel for all we know.

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Ridata has dabbled in the wonderful world of triple-data capacity SSDs before, but as with most manufacturers, it wouldn’t open its mouth and divulge a price. Now, however, we’ve got three newcomers to swoon over along with price tags to balk (or cheer, depending on wallet depth) over. The Ultra-S Plus MLC SATA SSD line has launched in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB sizes, all of which offer up to 128MB/sec read speeds and 80MB/sec write speeds. Without further adieu, the late July-bound trio will be selling for $169.90, $294.90 and $537.90 from least capacious to most. So, you gettin’ one?

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Good news on the SSD front. Samsung is now mass producing its 1.8- and 2.5-inch SSDs in both 64GB and 128GB capacities. And since these SATA II SSDs are based on MLC — 64 MLC NAND flash chips of 16 gigabits each in the 9.5-mm thick 128GB SSD — you can expect them to be cheap by comparison to SLC-based SSDs and faster by comparison to traditional laptop hard disk drives while lasting about 20 times longer than the expected 4-5 year life span of that mechanical spinner. We’re talking 70MB/s writes and 90MB/s reads and power consumption rated at just 0.2-watts idle or 0.5 watts when active — far less than any of the models (including the SSDs tested by LAPTOP) tested by Tom’s which should help put any battery consumption concerns to rest. Heaping happy on top of good, Samsung tells us to expect the 256GB SSD to go mass production by the end of the year. Clap clap clap.

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Uh oh, Samsung’s just announced their first 256GB SSD. Not that you needed to know anything more than that to trigger salivation, but the MLC-flash SATA II drive has speeds of 200MBps read and 160MBps sequential write. Not like we’ll be able to afford it or anything, but they’ll be available come September, with a 1.8-inch version due in Q4.

Continue reading Samsung announces crazy fast 256GB SSD, our knees buckle

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SuperTalent’s wide lineup of SSDs got a little bigger today, with the addition of some low(er)-cost MLC flash-based gear. Like the company’s earlier “world’s thinnest” 256GB drive, the three new models are external units, and you’re looking at capacities of 30GB, 60GB, and 120GB for $299, $449, and $699, respectively. That’s actually not all that bad, considering a bare 64GB SLC SSD can run an easy grand. Available now, it looks like.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

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With the help of some of their new manufacturing processes, SanDisk just doubled the capacity of their existing iNAND flash drive to 16GB. No, you won’t be slotting this bad boy into your laptop. Rather, it’s an embedded storage solution with SD interface for mobile handsets and the like based on MLC NAND, the faster and more expensive flavor of flash. Expected for sampling to OEMs/ODMs in Q2 with the iNAND 32GB version coming in the second half of the year.

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How do 200MBps reads and 100MBps writes in a storage device sound to you? Pretty sweet if you ask us. That’s the upper spec for Micron’s new highspeed 8Gb (Gigabit not Gigabyte, kids) SLC NAND co-developed with Intel on a 50-nm processes node. Once slapped together in an SSD, you can expect performance to easily outshine any existing SSD or mechanical drive on the market while easily kicking the SSD bugbear — random read/writes — to the curb. The rub, of course, is that SLC NAND is more expensive than MLC so you can expect to pay dearly for that performance. Watch for the speedy Micron flash to pop in cellphones, camcorders, SSDs (and pretty much every portable consumer electronics device out there) sometime in the second half of 2008 — sampling now to manufacturers.

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128GB of SSD. You long for it, you need it, and with any luck you’ll have it when Toshiba starts churning ‘em out for production by May. The new 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch MLC NAND slabs with SATA interfaces will ship in three capacities: 32GB, 64GB, and the big daddy 128GB. The new SSDs are based on the new 56-nm processes announced back in January. Of course, with Toshiba and Sandisk bedfellows in flash we’re also expecting a SanDisk announcement on the quick — certainly no later than CES in early January. No prices announced, though we anticipate the year-over-year reductions to continue, right boys?

[Via Impress]

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128GB of SSD. You long for it, you need it, and with any luck you’ll have it when Toshiba starts churning ‘em out for production by May. The new 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch MLC NAND slabs with SATA interfaces will ship in three capacities: 32GB, 64GB, and the big daddy 128GB. The new SSDs are based on the new 56-nm processes announced back in January. Of course, with Toshiba and Sandisk bedfellows in flash we’re also expecting a SanDisk announcement on the quick — certainly no later than CES in early January. No prices announced, though we anticipate the year-over-year reductions to continue, right boys?

[Via Impress]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Samsung’s been blowing our minds with its memory advancements for years, so we’re not at all surprised that this very company has seemingly figured out a way (officially, that is) to concoct a 128GB memory card. The secret to such a capacious offering is a new manufacturing process dubbed self-aligned double patterning technology (SaDPT), which has enabled the firm to create the “world’s first” 64Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chip using 30-nanometer process technology. Up to 16 of the 64Gb units can be combined to create a drool-worthy 128GB memory card, which can easily hold a modest DVD collection or upwards of 32,000 MP3s (its number, not ours). Apparently, Sammy hopes to crank up production on the flash devices in 2009, but until then, we’ll just have to make do with its awe-inspiring 64GB SSD.

[Via CNET]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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We’re not sure what’s more impressive here: the fact that Samsung has produced the world’s first 30nm-class 64Gb (bit, not byte!) NAND chip or that they’re now roping defenseless product waifs into hawking their silicon wafers. Nevertheless, we’re looking at a serious jump in density in just 10 months. A maximum of 16 of the new chips can be combined for cost-effective 128GB (byte, not bit!) MLC NAND-based flash cards used primarily for data storage. Sammy’s faster SLC based flash cards will still be the preferred choice when speed is of the utmost priority and cost isn’t an issue. As such, Samsung also announced a 32Gb SLC NAND chip based on the same SaDPT (Self-aligned double patterning technology) manufacturing process. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until 2009 for production to begin. Still, he looks happy dontchathink?

[Via AVING]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!