mSATA SSDs geared for ultrabooks

Samsung Electronics Co. has launched its line of SSDs that support the Mini-Serial ATA (mSATA) interface. According to the company, the drives are designed for ultra-slim notebooks such as ultrabooks.

Combining Samsung's new high-performance mSATA SSDs with the latest multicore processors will help PC manufacturers to improve performance of their ultrabook-class portable PCs up to notebooks, in meeting ever-increasing consumer needs, noted the company.

The Samsung mSATA SSDs will be available in 256, 128 and 64GB densities as main storage devices and at 32GB for caching. They measure 50.95 x 30 x 3.8mm and weigh eight grams. The SSDs will be part of the Samsung PM830 family that makes use of Samsung's 20nm class NAND flash memory components that incorporate the toggle DDR interface.

Using high-performance SATA 6Gbit/s controllers based on Samsung's own technology, the mSATA SSDs can operate at 500MB/s and of 260MB/s sequential read and write speeds, respectively, under optimum conditions. This is, more than six times the speed of hard disk drives typically offering a data transfer rate of 80MB/s, touted the company. The Samsung SSDs also enable faster system boot-ups (in the 10-second range) and will transmit five DVD files in about a minute.

In addition, the Samsung mSATA SSDs feature an advanced hardware-based security solution including 256bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) protection that will prevent unauthorized access to data on a lost or stolen notebook, added the company.