Industry moves towards solid state drives

Consumer Electronics Show 2008

Toshiba and Samsung have shown off 128GB solid state drives (SSDs) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Samsung has demonstrated 1.8in and 2.5in 128GB drives that will go into volume production later this year.

"Our SSDs can be used by the widest range of corporate notebooks, particularly where additional storage is needed beyond what is typical in most business applications," said Jim Elliott, director of Flash memory marketing at Samsung.

Toshiba announced last month that it was planning a big move into the SSD market and has been showing off the latest hardware at CES.

The new models have read and write speeds of 100Mbps and 40Mbps, and volume production starts this summer.

Neither company has revealed pricing information on the new drives, but the cost of Flash memory has fallen steadily in recent years.

An 832GB SSD promised from Bitmicro has yet to appear at CES, despite some heavy opening promotion.

SSDs are making it into the high end of computing, and more companies are examining making the switch.