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Samsung Mass Produces Fast 256GB SSDs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'm-sure-this-will-be-a-bargain dept.

Lucas123 writes "Samsung said it's now mass producing a 256GB solid state disk that it says has sequential read/write rates of 220MB/sec and 200/MBsec, respectively. Samsung said it focused on narrowing the disparity of read/write rates on its SSD drive with this model by interleaving NAND flash chips using eight channels, the same way Intel boosts its X25 SSD. The drive doubles the performance of Samsung's previous 64GB and 128GB SSDs. 'The 256GB SSD launches applications 10 times faster than the fastest 7200rpm notebook HDD,' Samsung said in a statement."

2 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fuzzy math by ustolemyname · · Score: 5, Informative

    So it launches applications 10 times faster [sic] (should say in 1/10 the amount of time), but the article only claims speed improvements of about 3.5 to 1. People need to seriously examine how they quote or accept statistics.

    Jim Elliott, vice president of memory marketing at Samsung, said the new 256GB drive can store 25 high-definition movies taking up 10GB of space each in just 21 minutes, which he said is a significant advancement over a 7200rpm hard disk drive, which takes about 70 minutes.

    Ah yes, but you don't have the seek times of the 7200rpm drive which are at best ~7ms. And since opening an application involves opening lots of different files (in different physical locations on the drive), this is where launching an app can be 10x faster.

    So for straight writing a single, large, contiguous piece of data, it's only 3.5 times faster. For loading 200 random, tiny files, it's ten times faster.

  2. Re:Powers of Two by iggya · · Score: 5, Informative

    Computer math doesn't work like regular math, like for example SATA2 which is 3Gbps. Now if I showed you a cargo ship with a capacity of 3000 tons, you'd think you could actually load 3000 tons right?

    No, you wouldn't necessarily expect to be able to load 3000 tons. Firstly, what type of tonnage are you talking about? In shipping, there are several different types of tonnage, or in other words, different values for the same thing, with at best slightly different names. For example, Gross Register Tonnage, Net Tonnage, Gross Tonnage, Thames tonnage, Panama Canal tonnage, Net Register Tonnage, and who knows what else.

    Secondly, suppose a ship has a "capacity of 3000 tons". Could you fit more pillows or gold bars into the ship? Which one will fill the hold first? Can you fit 3000 tons of pillows into a ship with a capacity of 3000 tons? Can you fit 3000 tons of helium in? 3000 tons of depleted uranium? What if the ship is to be sailed from a salt water port into a freshwater lake? Does that affect anything?

    Why would you pick tonnage of shipping as an example of regular math? Shipping measurements are all over the place. For example, how long is a ship? Well it depends on the shape of the ship, and where you measure it. Length at the waterline or length overall? With the ship loaded or empty? Heeling or sitting level? Salt water or fresh?

    Just about everything to do with computers is simpler and more regular than just about anything related to boating.