Samsung has begun mass producing 256 gigabyte (GB) solid state drives for use in notebooks and desktop PCs, featuring double the performance of Samsung's currently available 64GB and 128GB models.

The new 256GB SSD combine sequential read rates of 220MB/s with sequential write rates of 200MB/s. This sharply narrows the performance gap between read and write operations to only 10 percent, compared to a read-write speed difference of between 20 and 70 percent for other SSDs. In addition, erase cycles are a rapid 100GBs per minute, allowing the entire drive to be re-written much faster, when needed.

Getting our exceptionally high performing 256GB SSD in a notebook is analogous to having a 15,000rpm drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks," said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc.The Samsung 256GB SSD expedites data transfer when large multimedia files are simultaneously read and stored. It can store 25 high-definition movies in just 21 minutes, a significant advancement over a 7200rpm hard disk drive (HDD), which takes about 70 minutes. Furthermore, the 256GB SSD launches applications 10 times faster than the fastest 7200rpm notebook HDD.The 256GB SSD?s performance can be attributed to a new, optimized, single platform design consisting of a chip controller, NAND flash and special drive firmware all developed by Samsung. This single platform is designed to easily adapt to Samsung?s 40nm class NAND flash memory.

Also offering a high degree of energy efficiency, the new drive consumes 1.1 watts of power versus two or more watts for a comparable HDD. The high operating speed of the 256GB SSD translates into longer periods in either stand-by or idle mode resulting in up to 40 minutes of extended operation on a single battery charge.

Similar in weight to a 128GB SSD (81 grams), the 2.5-inch multi-level cell (MLC) 256GB SSD retains the standard 9.5 millimeter (mm) drive thickness.

Samsung's 256GB SSD is also available with optional proprietary encryption programming that provides full disk encryption, a key feature for many corporate users.