Samsung has revealed the world’s largest 2.5-inch SSD, managing to cram an astonishing 30.72TB of storage into the diminutive form factor.
Catchily dubbed the PM1643, the world-beating SSD is compromised of 32 sticks of 1TB NAND flash, each of which are unpinned by 16 layers of 512GB V-NAND storage. To put all that technobabble into more understandable terms, that’s about 5700 HD movies, or roughly 500 days of non-stop viewing. There are bigger SSDs out there, yes, but not in this petite a size (you have to go up to a 3.5-inch form factor to find more).
In addition, this SAS drive (Serial Attached SCSI) boasts sequential read and write speeds of 2100MB/s and 1700 MB/s, respectively. That’s a massive boost over what you get from a good SATA SSD these days, such as the current-gen Samsung 860 EVO, which maxes out at speeds of 550MB/s (read) and 520MB/s (write).
As you can probably tell by now, the Samsung PM1643 isn’t exactly an everyman product. It’s a decidedly enterprise-grade SSD, which we wouldn’t normally write about, were it not for the fact that large-capacity business storage units offer a taste of what the consumer market can expect in years to come.
That said, you’re not likely to see a 30TB laptop, or even desktop on sale in Argos anytime soon. By way of comparison, the aforementioned 860 EVO tops out at a 4TB model, so there’s still a mountain to climb before such Herculean capacities trickle down to the High Street.
Still, such eye-catching products can often force more mainstream storage prices down – although storage prices do vary wildly, thanks to a particularly volatile supply chain.
Samsung hasn’t revealed price or release date details for the PM1643 just yet, but unless you’ve got an oil field or two up your sleeve, it’s safe to say you probably won’t be able to afford one.
It might be a case of ‘somewhere over the rainbow’, but who can be faulted for dreaming of sunnier climes?
Related: Best SSDs
What would you do with a 30TB SSD? Tweet your wildest fantasies (within reason) to us @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.