Samsung Unveils 15TB SSD Flash Memory

Samsung has developed a 15.36TB solid-state drive (SSD) based on a 2.5-in. form factor, the same size drives used in today’s laptops.

The new 15.36TB (model PM1633a) SSD was among a group of new SSDs Samsung unveiled at the Flash Memory summit this week.

In 2014, Samsung became the first company to announce a 3D NAND Flash chipwith a 3-bit multi-level cell (MLC) architecture. In October, the company announced a 32-layer V-NAND chip and last week, it announced it is now mass producing the new 48-layer 3D chips for use in SSDs.

Samsung’s new 48-layer V-NAND chips are now in mass production and are able to store more data than any other flash chip on the market today.

“By making full use of Samsung V-NAND’s excellent features, we will expand our premium-level business in the enterprise and data center market segments, as well as in the consumer market, while continuing to strengthen our strategic SSD focus,” Young-Hyun Jun, president of Samsung Electronics memory business, said in a statement.

While Samsung may be the first to mass produce the 48-layer 3D NAND chips, it’s not alone in developing them.

 Samsung’s new SSD lineup also includes the PM1633 (a lower capacity model than the PM1633a), the PM1725 and the PM953, all of which are designed for use by computer system manufacturers. Each of the three SSD models, however, is targeted for different uses within a data center.

The PM1633 is a 2.5-in, 12Gbps serial-attached SCSI (SAS) SSDs designed for enterprise-class storage systems in data centers. An SSD’s designated use, however, doesn’t preclude it from finding its way onto the open market for consumer use — though prices for the SSD are likely to be in the thousands of dollars.

In contrast to the PM1633a, Samsung’s PM1633 SSD will be offered in 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB and 3.84TB versions.

The PM1633 delivers random read and write speeds of up to 160,000 and 18,000 input/output per second (IOPS) respectively, and boasts sequential read and write speeds of up to 1100MBps and 1000MBps. Samsung has released little information about the PM1633a, so its performance metrics are remain unclear.

Samsung’s second flash drive model announced this week is the PM1725, which comes in an expansion card form factor with a blazingly fast random read rate of 1 million IOPS and 120,000 write IOPS. The PM1725 comes in 3.2TB or 6.4TB capacity models with a half-height, half-length NVMe PCIe SSD form factor.

Samsung also announced its new PM953: an advanced NVMe SSD in both an M.2 (mini expansion card) and 2.5-in form factors; it offers up to 1.92TB of storage capacity.