Samsung Has Begun Producing 256-Gigabit 3D Nand - Will Double SSD Capacity This Year

Samsung has begun mass production of its new 256-Gigabit 3D V-NAND flash storage, which will allow a doubling of the capacity of its current crop of solid state drives. Beating hardware rivals Toshiba and SanDisk to the punch, Samsung will be the first to the market with the commercially viable SSD mass storage devices.

The announcement means more affordable, multi-terabyte SSDs should be with us soon, and the jump to 256GB, 48-layer V-NAND means Samsung can “easily double the capacity of [its] existing SSD line-ups.” At the moment the largest SSD available from Samsung is 2TB, and it’s available for an eye-watering $800. With this latest technology we’ll see Samsung leap to 4TB SSDs and beyond, as well as significantly reducing the cost of smaller drives.



“With the introduction of our 3rd generation V-NAND flash memory to the global market, we can now provide the best advanced memory solutions, with even higher efficiency based on improved performance, power utilization and manufacturing productivity, thereby accelerating growth of the high-performance and the high-density SSD markets,” said Young-Hyun Jun, president of the memory business at Samsung Electronics. “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.”

In comparison to the older, second-generation V-NAND, this 3-bit V-NAND will consume 30% less power when storing the same amount of data, as well as running around 40% faster than its predecessor.

Samsung’s big plan now is to go full steam ahead with production in the second half of 2015, with the aim of accelerating the adoption of multi-terabyte SSD users on PC. Despite SSDs being fairly commonplace now, many PC gamers are still opting for larger, cheaper storage to house all the games they’ve amassed.


Finally, we're going to see SSDs large enough that we don't have to constantly move our games around, are you planning on an upgrade? What size SSD is the minimum you'd consider? Let us know!