Samsung tightens grip on premium SSD market
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Samsung Electronics Memory Business Senior Vice President Kim Un-soo speaks during his opening speech at the 2015 Samsung SSD Global Summit at the Shilla Hotel in Jangchung-dong, Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics
By Yoon Sung-won
Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading manufacturer of solid-state drives (SSD), launched the new 950 PRO drive, Tuesday, aiming at customer demand for high-performance products.
The company said the 950 PRO is the first V-NAND flash memory SSD to support the super high-speed non-versatile memory express (NVMe) M.2 form factor, as well as the peripheral component interconnect express (PCI-E) 3.0 interface, and thus fits for workstations and high-end computers.
“With the introduction of the 950 PRO, Samsung Electronics now can help customers handle expanded storage demand for more powerful computing systems,” Samsung Electronics Memory Business Senior Vice President Kim Un-soo said during the fourth Samsung SSD Global Summit in Seoul, Tuesday.
“Both consumers and businesses will be able to experience enterprise-quality performance and benefits such as faster speed, higher endurance and more energy efficiency. The 950 PRO will elevate our product portfolio, reflecting the company’s leadership in the memory industry.”
The company said the NVMe, a protocol optimized for NAND flash memories, will dramatically boost the performance of the new SSD, compared with its predecessors.
“As the speed of SSDs has improved, the existing advanced host controller interface (AHCI) protocol began to cause a bottleneck phenomenon,” Samsung Electronics Brand Product Sales Group’s Jeong Doh-young said. “We have discussed when to introduce the new NVMe protocol. As we now have new Intel Skylake processors, new motherboards and Microsoft Windows 10 on the market, we believe it is high time to use the SSDs.”
Jeong said the 950 PRO is optimized for ultra-thin laptops, and will come in two sizes ― 256 and 512 gigabytes (GB) ― and cost $199.99 and $349.99, respectively.
The 512 GB model will have up to 2,500 megabits-per-second (Mbps) sequential read speed and 1,500 Mbps write speed. This is about 4.5 times and 2.8 times faster than its predecessor 850 PRO, he said.
Samsung Electronics said the 950 PRO is ideal for professionals and enterprises in computer-aided design, data analysis and engineering simulation as it offers cutting-edge performance, higher bandwidth and lower latency.
Jeong stressed that more product solutions will be rolled out soon for enterprises and data centers. The PM1725 will support up to 8 gigabits-per-second bandwidth and 5,000 Mbps sequential read speed.
“Both for consumers and enterprises, we will introduce faster and more improved flash memory storages based on the V-NAND and the NVMe technologies,” he said.
On Tuesday, Samsung Electronics also announced the new brand name “V-NAND SSD” for its diverse three-dimensional V-NAND products to promote the high performance of its products.