Samsung Reveals 2.5-Inch 16TB SSD

Samsung has unveiled the world’s largest hard drive and, surprisingly, there’s no disc to be found. Revealed at the Flash Memory Summit in California, Samsung has developed a 16TB solid state drive, beating its nearest size-rival, a 10TB HDD.

The 2.5-inch 16TB (15.36TB actual size) PM1633a is made possible by Samsung’s new 256Gbit (32GB) NAND flash die, which boasts twice the capacity of last year’s 128Gbit NAND dies. To achieve such a feat, Samsung has squeezed 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D V-NAND into each die. The drive is packed with technological innovations, including speeds of 1,000,000 IOPS, and a continuation of their intelligent drive initiative.

Since SSDs are essentially analogue devices – electrons held within quantum wells – shrinking storage devices isn’t feasible, so presumably Samsung has vertically stacked the 480-500 3D NAND chips (the ‘V’ in V-NAND stands for ‘vertical’). Fitting all those chips into a 2.5-inch drive seems just as great a feat as a 16TB SSD itself.

Though the PM1633a is aimed at enterprise customers, home PC users are bound to be excited by the prospect of owning a super-high capacity drive, boasting the speed and durability that comes with an SDD.

Thank you Ars Technica for providing us with this information.