Samsung Shows Off SATA II SSDs

While Samsung's most cutting edge solid-state drives won't hold any more data than its last, they will operate at twice the speed.

Producing solid-state drives (SSDs) with more and more storage is old news: Samsung is moving on to making them faster. On Monday, the company revealed new 64GB 1.8- and 2.5-inch drives with a SATA II interface that can write data at 100 MBps and read it at 120 MBps – twice as fast as the SATA I interface that has been used in SSDs up to this point.

Samsung used 8GB single-level-cell flash chips and its own proprietary SATA controller to achieve the speed boost. Compared with standard notebook hard drives that consume about 1.9 watts, the new drives cut energy consumption in half. “The 64GB SATA II SSD is based on Samsung’s cutting-edge NAND technology with dramatically improved performance specs that are taking system performance to a whole new level of efficiency,” said Jim Elliott, director of NAND flash marketing at Samsung, in a statement.

Unfortunately for consumers, the new drives aren’t yet commercially available. Current SSDs with 64GB capacities can retail for upwards of $2,000 apiece.