Samsung Introduces Silent Flash-chip Drive

By Niladri Sekhar Nath

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Samsung Electronics announces that it has designed a new data storage medium for mobile computers, reports AFP. The data storage medium will help users process data faster with nominal consumption of power.

 

According to AFP, the 32-Gigabyte (GB) NAND flash-based solid state disk (SSD) is phenomenal at uploading and downloading data quickly and silently. The storage device features immediately accessible, static NAND flash memory rather than the rotating discs usually used in hard drives.

 

What’s more, SSD weighs only half as much as a hard drive. Samsung claims that the gadget reads data three times faster and writes data 1.5 times quicker. Not only that, but SSD consumes only five percent of the electricity required to power a hard disk drive. The device operates silently since it doesn’t have any motor or other noise-generating components.

 

Samsung has introduced a landmark laptop installed with SSD at its annual Mobile Solution Forum. NAND flash chips are generally used in digital cameras and MP3 players. This is the first time Samsung shows that mobile computer can take advantage of the NAND flash chips as well.

 

Analysts are of the view that laptops equipped with SSD will comprise 30 percent of the global laptop market by 2008. They have high hopes for SSD-equipped laptops, predicting that the price of a 32-gigabyte SSD will go down from the $500 to $200.

 

Media reports say that the global SSD market will expand from $540 million in 2006 to $4.5 billion dollars by 2010.