I guess it is pretty easy to lay claim to being the fastest or largest device in the industry today, if you throw in plenty of other criteria into the mix. Take for example, Samsung Electronics who have placed their hands on both “fastest” and “largest” superlatives with the new 2.5″, 256GB multi-level cell (MLC) based solid state drive (SSD) using a SATA II interface. This high capacity flash storage device was unveiled at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum, and is also touted to be the thinnest drive with the largest capacity to be offered with a SATA II interface. I wonder just how many other SSDs fall under a similar category in order to go up against Samsung’s offering.

This new SSD will feature a sequential read speed of 200MB/s and sequential write speed of 160MB/s, making this MLC-based Samsung offering approximately 2.4 times faster than a standard hard disk drive. It also measures a mere 9.5mm thick - or should I say slim in this case, with dimensions of 100.3mm x 69.85 mm. When officially released, this 256GB SSD will also hold the honor of being the largest capacity SSD from the global market leader in SSD sales, dropping the argument that adopting SSDs in a computer or other equivalent device comes with the sacrifice of space, although cost has not yet been calculated into the equation.

According to Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc, “With development of the 256GB SSD, the notebook PC is on the brink of a second stage of evolution. This change is comparable to the evolution from the Sony Walkman to NAND memory-based MP3 players, representing an initial step in the shift to thinner, smaller SSD-based notebooks with significantly improved performance and more than ample storage. ”

Press Release