Samsung’s 512 Gbyte SSD pushes SATA 3 Gbps to the limit with “30nm class” Toggle NAND Flash chips

Samsung just announced that it will be in volume production with a high-speed, 512 Gbyte SSD next month. The company rates the drive’s sequential read and write performance at 250 Gbytes/sec and 220 Gbytes/sec respectively. According to Samsung, these performance numbers come from a combination of 32-Gbit toggle-mode NAND Flash chips (produced in a “30nm class” process announced at the end of 2009) and Samsung’s Flash controller and firmware efforts. Both read and write speeds are very good, but the sequential write speed is outstanding for a SATA-class drive and is three times faster than Intel’s X-25M consumer-class SSD. Computerworld quotes Forward Insights’ analyst Gregory Wong as saying that the 3Gbps SATA II interface is the limiting factor in the design of Samsung’s new SSD and that an upgrade to the 6Gbps SATA 3.0 spec should boost read and write speeds even more. The switch to 30nm NAND Flash devices with specific toggle-mode features allowed Samsung to double drive capacity with no increase in power consumption, relative to the company’s previous 256-Gbyte SSD based on 16-Gbit, 40nm Flash devices.