Toshiba said Wednesday that it will showcase a 512GB solid-state drive at the Consumer Electronics Show next month and begin shipments in the second quarter of 2009.
To date, this would be one of the largest-capacity solid-state drives for use in laptops and come close to matching the size of mobile hard-disk drives.
Samsung has begun mass production of a 256GB SSD and Micron Technology is readying a 256GB drive that will ship in March.
Toshiba said it is releasing a broad family of "fast read/write SSDs" based on 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND flash technology that will be showcased at CES. MLC technology allows solid-state drive makers to deliver higher capacity drives at lower prices.
In addition to the 2.5-inch 512GB drive, the new series of Toshiba drives also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules, the company said in a statement.
Samples of the new drives will be available in the first quarter of 2009, with mass production slated for the second quarter, in the April to June time frame, according to the company.
No pricing information was immediately available.
The drives achieve a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB per second (MBps) and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps. This is roughly the same read-write speeds offered by Samsung on its 256GB SSD.
Toshiba said it sees SSDs growing to approximately 25 percent of the notebook market by 2012.
