SSDs have been creeping up in capacity and creeping down in price over the last few years. It, perhaps, isn’t happening at the same pace we saw with mechanical hard drives, but it is happening.
SSDs are the storage medium of choice when you need fast access to files – like when booting up your operating system or loading software. But they’re prohibitively expensive for most. Samsung plans to change that with new 4TB SSDs designed not cloud storage or enterprise level application, but for consumer end users.
The new drives will offer up to 540MB/sec read speed and 520MB/sec write speed. Plenty fast enough for all but the most demanding of users. Designed to bring big SSD storage to the masses, it will also become available in 2TB and 1TB varieties using the standard 2.5″ form factor.
Samsung’s new 4-bit SATA SSD will herald a massive move to terabyte-SSDs for consumers. As we expand our lineup across consumer segments and to the enterprise, 4-bit terabyte-SSD products will rapidly spread throughout the entire market.
– Jaesoo Han, EVP of memory sales & marketing at Samsung Electronics
Samsung’s existing 860 EVO 4TB SSD costs over $1,000. For many enterprise-level customers, this isn’t a massive outlay for the benefits it can bring. But for many small businesses, freelancers and general consumers, that drive may cost more than the actual computer it’s going inside. It’s just too cost-prohibitive. Compared to the cost of a 4TB mechanical hard drive at around $100.
Pricing and release date information is yet to come, but Samsung is going to need to really bring the price on these new drives down below current 860 levels to make them as viable as Samsung seems to suggest they will become for average consumers.
[via Engadget]
