Samsung Prepares the 128 GB Flash Memory Card
Posted October 24th, 2007 by Mihnea Boiangiu
This news thrilled me, because even my laptop’s hard drive has only 80GB. But technology never stops. Samsung announced an advanced process to pack the maximum of 16 of the multi level cells just 30 nanometers. That means they are able to deliver 64 gigabits of flash memory onto one chip. The process was called self-aligned double patterning technology (SaDPT).
By using the process described above, Samsung can produce 128 GB NAND memory card. Consequently, the price for memory cards will drop, which is a good thing for the consumers. Also, the high storage cards could replace the traditional hard disks being more efficient. But we have to wait till the technology will be released, perhaps in 2009.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing it.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Finally! Solid state computers. Time to retire phonograph technology (hard drives).
October 25th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Is anyone surprised that someone would do something like like this? Really. Don’t get me wrong, I am very impressed with this product. But technology has been rapid since the mid - late 90’s.
No one should be surprised anymore. That’s all I’m saying.
October 25th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Very cool to see the Koreans leading way on the technology front. I hope to buy some of this new technology soon.
October 25th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Kinda silly, since Flash memory cards have a limited lifespan. Who would want to buy a 128 GB flash drive, only to have it die a few weeks later? Flash memory cards are supposed to be small and disposable.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Mike, are you retarded? I mean that in the nicest way possible. Flash memory can get pretty expensive. That is one hell of a disposable device! I have never heard of one failing either and I have plenty of them myself.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Time to ditch those hard drives for solid state drives
October 25th, 2007 at 8:59 am
This is pretty cool news, I just hope a flash ipod of this size doesn’t come out soon - I just bought a classic!
October 25th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Would this really die out? I’ve had flash memory cards for ages without any trouble. Maybe it’s true though, if there wasn’t a problem then why aren’t all new computer hard drives flash memory?
October 25th, 2007 at 10:26 am
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October 25th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hmmmm, I think I just got a woody! I’m wondering though, WHEN THE FUCK can we get rid of RAM FOREVER!?? And, is this the first step toward that wonderful dream? or will technology companies mimic what the demonic auto-industry did in the late 90’s to destroy both the electric-car as well as our planet in the process?
October 25th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Ben, the reason they aren’t put in new computers is that they are way behind disks, i have a 400GB drive and even that is old, 128GB in 2009 is nothing. Oh we can but hope
October 25th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Wow, can’t wait! Anyone know how nuch it’s likely to cost?
October 26th, 2007 at 2:43 am
[…] Samsung Prepares the 128 GB Flash Memory Card | DevicePedia.com (tags: technology) […]
October 26th, 2007 at 11:29 am
really cool product will be good to have that amount of storgae in a flash card. and although flash drives have a limited number or read writ cycles they are far more surable than hard drives which frequently die and can be damaged by impacts so maby not so good to run programs from but brill for storring all those high def vidieos
October 27th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Wow, I would really want one of those. Unfortunately, I bet they’re way too expensive for anyone to buy now. Just waitin’ for Moore’s law to come and save us!
October 27th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Solid state computers should have been here 10 years ago, especially for laptops, which suck up the battery power. No one wants moving parts. We must live in the alternate universe where everything takes forever to get going like renewable energy, solid state computers. oled tvs, etc.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Wow, I can’t wait for that to come out. Nano tech is awesome!!
Cheers!
October 27th, 2007 at 10:26 am
….and the Indians will make terrabytes of affordable software to fill em up ! … and we, the consumers / users will love to carry all music/video/data in a “thumbnail”.
Waw…Does it also mean that you can carry ur PC HDD around in thumbnail, OS included ! ? .. so much so that you can work in any PC, but with-in your own environment just by plugging in the Flash card into a Flash Disk Drive… Biz travelers, techies, music/video lovers etc. all are gonna love it.
October 27th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Flash drives _do_ have a limited lifespan, just like harddrives. They are just measured differently. On harddisks it’s based on average mechanical wear and tear more than the electronic components. For flash drives it depends on the number of “erase units”. Each erase unit typically has a limited number of times it can be reliably erased and reused.
An erase unit can be anything from a KB and up in size, and the higher the number of erase units, the better off you are.
Typical number of write-erase cycles is anywhere from 100.000 and up, but more likely today 1 million or more.
To further add to the lifetime, most flash devices include “wear leveling” technology in hardware, or rely on the drivers to implement wear leveling. Wear leveling means more or less to dynamically remap where data is stored on the drive - it can be done at the filesystem level or at the block level, and ensure that the same erase unit doesn’t get reused and erased too often.
Many flash drives will also (just like some harddisks) contain extra space to allow the drive to dynamically remap any worn out erase units.
Consider a 128GB flash drive with 1MB erase units, which is huge and 1 million erase cycles. Add some waste for wear leveling, but then assume even writes across the entire drive (waste because effective wear leveling on a mostly full drive will involve moving data around). Lets say we do one erase of the whole drive in a day (that’s around 1/3 erases wasted for wear leveling). That leaves 1million days until the unit starts reaching it’s limitation on erases. Or more than 2700 years.
Even if the units is junk, and the erase units die after 100.000 erases, it would still hold out for more than 270 years (though other wear and tear would obviously likely kill it long before…)
Assume erase units of 10MB, and it would still live for over 27 years.
In other words, the lifetime of the flash chips is _not_ the limitation on flash drives anymore. It’s mainly down to cost and quality of the drive manufacturer.
October 27th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Mike, your flash drives probably fail because you don’t “safely remove” them from the computer. If you don’t do that, then yes, they will “die a few weeks later.” Go learn some technology. You’re gonna need it if you want your new 128GB flash drives to last a while.
October 28th, 2007 at 11:48 am
it’s great! storage devices are not reliable but it’s up to their users to back up their data regularly.
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:02 am
We have to agree with Joe. It’s true, that you should use the safely remove drive option if you want to use them for a long time.
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November 6th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I am still waiting for the six million dollar man.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Replacing flash drives with traditional drives will shorten its life span. Flash memory has a limited read/write count before it fails. There is a new technology that is suppose to help bypass bad areas that fail on flash memory over time, but the smaller memory gets the more likely it will fail.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Cool. Cool. 128 gb. Flash. Card. I. Hope. New computers. And. Gaming. Consoles. Use. Flash. Memory.