Solid-state drives and limited space have always gone hand in hand. The speed of an SSD was, in a way, "balanced" by the limited capacity of each product. But if we heed Samsung's new announcement, that is about to become history. The official name is PM1633a, which doesn't tell us much by itself. But when we look at the specs, we discover the largest internal storage unit on the planet: 16 terabytes.
The capacity dilemma in solid-state drives is about to come to an end. Each new generation of SSDs has seen notable increases in space, to the point where they can match their mechanical siblings. Of course, cost is something that still needs much work, and more friendly prices will only appear once the ideal balance between high production and economy is reached. As users, each of us has specific needs, but the business world moves by different rules. When parameters like redundancy and energy consumption enter the equation, some solutions that seem unfeasible for the average consumer make perfect sense to those who manage data centers and server farms.
As an example, take Samsung's recent announcement at the Flash Memory Summit in California. The official product name is PM1633a, and at first glance it looks like any other 2.5-inch SSD. Of course, things change completely once you know its capacity. Thanks to a dark spell cast by its engineers (better known as 3D NAND), the Korean giant has managed to pack almost 16 terabytes (15.36 TB effective) into the PM1633a. The explanation for 3D NAND is so simple that it doesn't do justice to the extraordinary complexity of its manufacturing. In very relaxed terms, a NAND cell receives a groove, folds in half over that groove, and is installed vertically.
The result? Something like 480 cells of 256 gigabits each, in a 2.5-inch format. As if that weren't enough, Samsung presented a demo at the summit with a server of 768 terabytes (!) based on 48 PM1633a units. Its performance was in the order of 2 million IOPS, while a general consumer SSD delivers between 10,000 and 90,000 IOPS, depending on its load. How much will this monster cost? Samsung hasn't revealed the official price yet, but early estimates anticipate no less than seven thousand euros, and it could go even higher.
