Samsung claims to have raised the reliability and capacity of solid state drives with the new 1TB models in its 850 Pro line, made using the company's latest memory technology.
The performance and power efficiency advances in the new SSDs come thanks to the second generation of Samsung's 3D V-NAND technology, in which 32 NAND storage layers are vertically stacked in one chip package. The SSDs are among Samsung's most compact, fastest and most power-efficient, the company said.
The SSDs are targeted at desktops, and join three older, lower-capacity 850 Pro models that are now shipping in 53 countries. Prices for the new models have been set at: 1TB for US$729.99; 512GB for $429.99; 256GB for $229.99; and 128GB model for $129.99. The 850 Pro SSDs plug in to SATA 2.5-inch bays in PCs.
Samsung claims that the new SSDS have random read performance of up to 100,000 IOPS (input-output operations-per-second), and random write speeds of 90,000 IOPS.
A few 1TB SSDs for desktops are available from other companies, but some models have speed and endurance issues. Samsung claims that SSDs made using its latest memory technology are more durable and 20 percent more power efficient than conventional SSDs.
Samsung has turned to chip stacking as a way to cram more storage into SSDs for all sorts of devices that are getting smaller and more power-efficient. The SSDs have a proprietary interconnect between the layers to transfer data between storage chips. The first-generation V-NAND SSDs announced in August last year had 24 stacked storage layers.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com