Samsung 6Gb mSATA SSDs in Production

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced volume production of SSDs that support the mSATA interface.

The drives are designed for use in ultra-slim notebooks such as Ultrabook PCs.

"Samsung’s compact mSATA SSDs will provide performance of the highest quality in helping to deliver the advanced ultra-slim PCs that consumers have been wanting," said Myungho Kim, vice president of memory marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue providing timely delivery of advanced SSD solutions, while preserving its leadership position in the SSD market for notebook PCs."

Combining Samsung’s mSATA SSDs with the latest multi-core processors will help PC manufacturers to improve performance of their Ultrabook-class portable PCs up to that of notebook PCs.

The new Samsung mSATA SSDs (The mSATA PM830 SSDs are available only to OEMs for installation in new PCs or other devices) will be available in 256, 128 and 64GB densities as main storage devices, and also at 32GB for caching. They measure 50.95 x 30 x 3.8 millimeters and weigh eight grams.

The new SSDs will be part of the Samsung PM830 product family that was introduced earlier this year. They make use of Samsung’s 20 nanometer class NAND flash memory components which incorporate the toggle DDR interface.

Utilizing SATA 6Gb/s controllers-based on Samsung’s own technology, the new mSATA SSDs can operate at the industry’s sequential read and write speeds of 500MB/s and of 260MB/s respectively, under optimum conditions. This is more than six times the speed of hard disk drives typically offering a data transfer rate of 80MB/s. The Samsung SSDs also enable faster system boot-ups (in the 10-second range) and will transmit five DVD files in about a minute.

In addition, the Samsung mSATA SSDs feature an hardware-based security solution including 256-bit AES protection, which will prevent unauthorized access to data on a lost or stolen notebook PC.

Beginning this year, the market for Ultrabook-class mobile PCs has been growing rapidly and is expected to expand beyond that of tablet PCs as early as next year due to outstanding performance characteristics, more advanced processors and use of the Windows 8 operating system. According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, the Ultrabook share of global notebook shipments will exceed 40 percent in 2015.