Toshiba Intros 512GB Solid State Drives for Notebooks

Toshiba’s introducing several solid state drives at CES 2009 including a 512GB 2.5-inch drive and a 256GB 1.8-inch drive. They are slated to go into mass production in the second quarter of 2009.

Many thin and light notebooks and netbooks utilize 1.8-inch drives because of their smaller footprints and lower energy consumption.

Higher capacity SSDs are exciting, but I’m still waiting for prices to come down before I buy any of my own.

Here’s the press release from Toshiba:

Toshiba Launches Industry’s First 512GB Solid State Drive and Next-Generation SSD Family Using 43nm MLC NAND

New SSD Family Achieves High Levels of Performance, Endurance, Capacity and Reliability to Meet Market Requirements for Notebook Computers, Gaming and Home Entertainment Systems

IRVINE, Calif. and TOKYO, Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ — Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC)*, its subsidiary in the Americas, today announced the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry’s first 2.5-inch 512-gigabyte (GB)(1) SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSDs based on 43 nanometer (nm) Multi-Level Cell NAND. The new drives provide a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems, and will be showcased at International CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 – 11, 2009.

In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. Samples of the new drives will be available in the first quarter (January to March) of 2009, with mass production in the second (April to June) quarter.

Toshiba’s second-generation SSDs bring increased capacity and performance for notebook computers. They utilize an advanced MLC controller, which is also compatible with further advanced processes, that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to optimize performance, reliability and endurance. The drives enable improved system responsiveness with a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB per second (MBps)(2) and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps enabling an improvement in overall computing experience, and faster boot and application loading times. The drives also offer AES data encryption to prevent unauthorized data access.

“The solid state drive market is evolving rapidly, with higher performance drives to meet market requirements, and differentiated product families targeted for appropriate applications,” said Mr. Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Vice President of Toshiba Corporation’s Semiconductor Company. “This new 43nm SSD family balances value/performance characteristics for its targeted consumer applications, through use of MLC NAND and an advanced controller architecture.”

Toshiba and many market analysts expect SSDs to begin to gain significant traction in the market in 2009, growing to approximately 10% of the notebook market by 2010, and 25% of the notebook market by 2012. Toshiba expects the value/performance of its MLC NAND-based SSD line-up to help speed the acceptance of solid state storage.

Toshiba will continue to promote innovations that widen the horizons of the NAND Flash market and support its continued leadership in that market. The company will spur demand for SSDs in notebook PCs, netbooks, laptops and digital consumer products by enhancing its lineup, offering products with different densities and interfaces in a range of packages, while advancing device performance. For more information on Toshiba SSDs, please visit ssd.toshiba.com.

Outline of the new products

Form Factor Capacity Product Number Samples Start of

Mass

Production

2.5-inch Serial ATA-2 512GB THNS512GG8BB 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

2.5-inch Serial ATA-2 256GB THNS256GG8BB 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

2.5-inch Serial ATA-2 128GB THNS128GG4BB 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

2.5-inch Serial ATA-2 64GB THNS064GG2BB 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

1.8-inch Serial ATA-2 256GB THNS256GG8BA 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

1.8-inch Serial ATA-2 128GB THNS128GG4BA 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

1.8-inch Serial ATA-2 64GB THNS064GG2BA 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

1.8-inch Flash Module 256GB THNS256GG8BM 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

Serial ATA-2

1.8-inch Flash Module 128GB THNS128GG4BM 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

Serial ATA-2

1.8-inch Flash Module 64GB THNS064GG2BM 1Q, 2009 2Q, 2009

Serial ATA-2

Product specification

2.5-inch Serial 1.8-inch Serial 1.8-inch Flash

ATA-2 ATA-2 Module Serial ATA-2

Size 69.9 (W) x 9.5(H) 54.0(W) x 5.0(H) 53.6(W) x 3.0(H) x

x100(D) mm x78.5(D) mm 70.6(D) mm

Mass 66g (Typ.) 44g (Typ.) 15g (Typ.)

Interface Serial ATA-2 (3Gbps)(3)

Voltage 3.3V (Module, 1.8-inch type), 5V (2.5-inch type)

Reading speed Maximum speed 240MBps (sequential mode)

Writing speed Maximum speed at 200MBps (sequential mode)

Temperature 0 to 70 degrees Celsius

MTTF(4) 1 million hours

*About Toshiba Corp. and TAEC