Samsung Electronics said Monday that it has begun selling a superfast data storage device to help consumers better enjoy data-intensive content such as gaming.

In a statement, the company said its "2-terabyte (TB) 850 PRO & EVO" solid state drive (SSD) is available in 50 countries.

SSD, based on the flash memory technology, is an advanced storage device which is rapidly replacing conventional hard disk-drives (HDD). It drastically cuts booting time in PCs, enhances writing and reading speeds and weighs less. Therefore, the usage of SSD has been expanded into slim notebooks and corporate servers.

"The global launch of the product shows Samsung's plan to expand SSD lineup amid growing demand for faster data speed and expanded data storage," Samsung spokesman Justin Lee said.

The new 850 EVO and PRO, operated by its in-house NAND chip controller, feature second-generation or 32-layer V-NAND technology and also adopted 2 gigabyte (GB) LPDDR3.

Also, as the cells are staked vertically with the V-NAND, the products don't adversely affect endurance.

The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. One terabyte is one trillion bytes.

The latest SSDs offer lower-power consumption. The 850 PRO model has stunning writing and reading speed of 520 megabytes per second and 550 megabytes per second if all conditions are met.

From the view of consumers, with the 2TB of space, gamers will have more room to keep games that are several gigabytes in size on their gaming consoles, such as Microsoft's X-box.

"Samsung has been accelerating its efforts to put SSDs into the industry's stream," said Lee.

Samsung's memory chip business is on a bullish track both in profits and revenue.

Lee said the implication of its efforts to boost SSDs with V-NAND technology is that there will be more storage in the same or less space, meaning more portable and possibly more affordable drives.

"The 2TB SSSDs are the fruit of Samsung's labor. They boast a TB of storage and it occupies a drastically smaller footprint than previous external storage devices," Lee said.

The products' releases come at a time when Samsung is battling with Intel of the United States for supremacy in the next-generation of storage devices. Samsung leads from the front with a 44.7 percent market share.

But the Korean company is increasingly being challenged by Intel as the U.S. semiconductor maker is intending to rapidly boost its SSD shipment tally in the near future in order to substantially increase its hold in the market next year with an aim to overtake Samsung.

The Samsung statement said it plans to add to its SSD lineup in the future to continue its firm grip in the sector.

"Demand for SSDs remains very solid. Leading chipmakers have been releasing their latest SSDs for consumers and that means concerns over high SSD prices have been cut," said Park Yoo-ak, an analyst at Meritz Securities.

By: DocMemory
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