Continuing its push to make solid-state drives (SSDs) the dominant storage medium of next-generation computers, Samsung has revealed the PM1633a, a 15.36TB SSD that is believed to be the world’s highest-capacity hard drive. More amazingly, notes an Ars Technica report, that incredible capacity — over 120 times the storage of an entry-level MacBook Air or MacBook Pro — fits within a compact 2.5″ hard drive enclosure.
The PM1633a’s debut ahead of a comparably capacious spinning platter hard disk demonstrates the degree to which SSDs are rapidly replacing traditional hard drives.
Loaded with 48 layers containing roughly 500 256Gb/32GB NAND flash chips, the PM1633a is being billed as “~16TB” in capacity, a size that’s currently better-suited to enterprise applications than mainstream customers. It’s also roughly twice the height of 2.5″ drives commonly found in laptops. For these reasons, Samsung demonstrated the PM1633a in a server with 48 SSDs installed, reaching a total capacity of nearly 768TB.
No pricing has been announced for the new SSD, but estimates in the $5,000 and up range would be appropriate. Samsung just began to sell 2.5-inch 2TB SSDs for $800 (consumer) to $1000 (professional) last month.
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And by August of 2016 it will be down to $999.00 :)
Do Want One!
Yes please!!
This is great news. The 2TB models also have great appeal for me.
But will it bend?
Seriously, this is slightly smaller than my 20 TB RAID, and actually larger because the RAID is redundant so it really is only about 10 TB.
I really seem to want this, but I have found that my long-term storage is fine at a slower speed; not ideal, but acceptable. Hopefully this beast will cause other SSDs to drop in price.
Holy forkin shlit!
Send me one once the price reaches $499
1983 marked the introduction of the IBM PC XT, which, for an extra $1000, swapped out a 10MB hard drive for one of the floppies. And there’s your Old Guy Comment of the Day.
Impressive.
Current gen computers use SSDs… there is nothing “next gen” about them
If I could trouble you to read the whole sentence, SSDs are still working to become the dominant storage medium for computers. Unit sales last year were something like 90%/10% in favor of HDDs, or 80%/20% based on the estimates you believe. But SSDs are growing rapidly in popularity as HDD sales are falling. So we are perhaps a generation away from them being dominant.
well, I only consider Macs viable computers… so SSDs are already the dominant storage medium :P
When its $500, let me know.