Seoul, Korea — Targeted at the netbook market, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is sampling a SATA-interface mini-card solid state drive (SSD) that measures 30-mm wide x 51-mm high x 3.75-mm thick with some of its customers. The Samsung SATA mini-card SSD expands the use of these devices from a primary storage medium to a complementary drive to boost the performance of PCs with dual-drive capabilities. Aimed at high efficiency, the new drive consumes 0.3 watts of power.
Featuring a mini-PCI Express (PCIe) form factor with a SATA 3.0 Gb/s interface, the mini-card SSD is nearly 80 percent smaller than the conventional 2.5-inch hard disk drive, making it suitable for the tighter constraints of most netbooks. In addition, it can be used in printers and various handheld terminals including ruggedized mobile devices.
Available in 16-GB, 32-GB and 64-GB densities, the new SSD drive will be produced using 40-nanometer-class process technology. The SATA mini-card SSD provides a sequential read rate of 200 MB/s (megabytes per second) and writes data sequentially at 100 MB/s.
The SATA mini-card SSD form factor can be used in a combination comprised of the SSD as the main memory and HDD as supporting storage space. This new approach is expected to increase the adoption of SSDs in a broader range of applications, says Samsung.
Samsung is working to standardize the new mechanical form factor and its pin layout specifications at Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC). With possible revisions by OEM manufacturers, standardization could be expected as early as the third quarter of 2009.
The netbook-targeted SSD is available with optional full disk encryption.