Samsung Electronics unveiled a 2.5 inch 16TB SSD (PM1633a SSD), the world’s highest capacity hard drive, during the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California today.
Samsung’s 16TB SSD is significantly larger compared to the largest conventional hard drives from Seagate Technology and Western Digital with a maximum capacity of 8TB and 10TB, respectively.
Samsung 256Gbit 3D Vertical NAND flash chips
The PMI633a SSD uses NAND flash chips instead of spinning platters. The secret component in Samsung’s 16TB SSD is the company’s new 256Gbit (32GB) 3D Vertical NAND flash memory. It was twice the capacity of the 128Gbit NAND introduced and commercialized by several semiconductor companies last year.
Samsung managed to put together 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (LC) 3D vertical NAND flash into a single die to achieve an astounding density, higher than the 24 layers in 2013 and 36 layers in 2014.
Golem.de reported that Samsung presented a server with 48 of those new SSDs that have a total capacity of 768TB and a performance rated at 2,000,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second). The consumer grade SSD found in PCs is capable of approximately 10,000-90,000 IOPS depending on the workload.
Technology observers suggested the Samsung 16TB SSD is intended for the enterprise market. The cost of the hard drive is probably around $5,000 to $7,000.
Samsung is providing best memory solutions
Samsung recently announced that it started the mass production of its first 256Gbit, 3D Vertical NAND flash memory based on 48 layers of 3-bit multi-level-cell (MLC) for solid state drives (SSDs).
Young-Hyun Jun, president of memory business at Samsung said the company is providing the best and advanced memory solutions with the introduction of its third generation V-NAND flash memory to the global market.
He emphasized that Samsung’s 3D V-NAND flash memory offers “even higher efficiency based on improved performance, power utilization, and manufacturing productivity.” It accelerated the growth of the high-performance and high-density SSD markets.
Samsung plans to produce 3rd generation V-NAND until the end of this year to speed up the adoption of terabyte-level SSDs. The South Korean electronics company also plans to increase its high-density SSD sales for enterprise and data center storage markets leading-edge PCIe NVMe and SAS interfaces. The company is current introducing SSDs with two terabytes densities for consumers.
