10TB SSDs on the way from Toshiba and Intel…but not for at least a year

Micron and Intel, and separately Toshiba, have revealed that solid state drives (SSDs) as large as 10 terrabytes will be available to manufacturing partners as early as next year.

Ultimately, it’s still pretty early days for the multi-layer chip technologies that make such capacities possible, but devices containing 10TB of SSD storage are at least now on the distant horizon.

Micron and Intel say that by using 3D NAND technology, they can fit more than 3.5TBs of storage on a “gum-sized” SSD, and more than 10TB on a standard 2.5-inch drive.

While SSDs with this capacity still look a while away from arriving in consumer devices, it’s interesting to see such huge leaps in capabilities that put them in line with traditional hard disks.

When first introduced, SSDs were popular due to the size and weight savings, but drove the overall cost of devices far beyond those with standard disk drives. With this technology now maturing and becoming more mainstream, availability will continue to increase and prices should only continue to fall.

➤ Micron and Intel Unveil New 3D NAND Flash Memory Technology Advancements Enable Three Times More Capacity than Other NAND Technologies [Intel] / Toshiba Develops World’s First 48-layer BiCS [Toshiba via Engadget]