Samsung today announced that mass production has begun on a new NVMe PCIe solid state drive in a ball grid array package, the first of its kind to be available in large quantities. The SSD, called the PM971-NVMe, is tiny, merging all SSD components into a package that's smaller than a standard U.S. postage stamp.
Designed for next-generation PCs and ultra-slim notebooks, the PM971-NVMe measures in at 20mm x 16mm x 1.5mm and weighs approximately a gram. Its volume is about a hundredth of a 2.5-inch SSD or HDD, and it offers performance able to surpass a SATA 6Gb/s interface with sequential read/write speeds of up to 1500MB/s and 900MB/s, respectively.
According to Samsung, it takes 3 seconds to transfer a 5GB-equivalent full-HD movie and is up to 1500 times faster than a standard hard drive when it comes to random read/write input output operations per second (190K and 150K, respectively). Samsung plans to offer the SSD in 128, 256, and 512GB configurations.
"Samsung's new BGA NVMe SSD triples the performance of a typical SATA SSD, in the smallest form factor available, with storage capacity reaching up to 512GB," said Jung-bae Lee, senior vice president, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering Team, Samsung Electronics. "The introduction of this small-scale SSD will help global PC companies to make timely launches of slimmer, more stylish computing devices, while offering consumers a more satisfactory computing environment."
Apple has used Samsung SSDs in its Mac machines in the past, and it stands to reason that the company could adopt Samsung's newest technology in the future. There's no guarantee that will happen, but Apple often likes to include cutting-edge technology in its products.
Apple has been using a faster NVM Express interface for the SSDs of its most recent machines, starting with the 12-inch Retina MacBook. Intel is also developing next-generation 3D Xpoint SSD technology that's set to launch in 2016 in its forthcoming Optane solid state drives, another hardware option that may be of interest to Apple.
Benchmark testing has indicated that the 256GB variant of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 chip offers slower SSD performance than its M1 equivalent, and now real-world stress testing by YouTuber Max Yuryev of Max Tech suggests that the 256GB SSD in the 13-inch MacBook Pro is also underperforming in day-to day-usage.
The M2 MacBook Pro with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM was slower than the M1 MacBook ...
Fifteen years ago to this day, the iPhone, the revolutionary device presented to the world by the late Steve Jobs, officially went on sale.
The first iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, and went on sale on June 29, 2007. "An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are not three separate devices," Jobs famously said. "Today, Apple is going to reinvent the...
The redesigned MacBook Air with the all-new M2 Apple silicon chip will be available for customers starting Friday, July 15, MacRumors has learned from a retail source. The new MacBook Air was announced and previewed during WWDC earlier this month, with Apple stating availability will begin in July. The MacBook Air features a redesigned body that is thinner and lighter than the previous...
Apple last week launched an updated version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and it is the first Mac that is equipped with an updated M2 chip. As it's using a brand new chip, we thought we'd pick up the M2 MacBook Pro and compare it to the prior-generation M1 MacBook Pro to see just what's new.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. For the video comparison, we're using the...
With many customers choosing to upgrade their iPhone every two or three years nowadays, there are lots of iPhone 11 Pro users who might be interested in upgrading to the iPhone 14 Pro later this year. Those people are in for a treat, as three years of iPhone generations equals a long list of new features and changes to look forward to.
Below, we've put together a list of new features and...
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern today shared a new documentary about the evolution of the iPhone ahead of the 15th anniversary of the device launching on June 29, 2007. The documentary includes an interview with Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak, iPhone co-creator Tony Fadell, and a family of iPhone users.
One segment of the interview reflects on Android smartphones gaining larger...
TSMC will manufacture Apple's upcoming "M2 Pro" and "M3" chips based on its 3nm process, according to Taiwanese industry publication DigiTimes.
"Apple reportedly has booked TSMC capacity for its upcoming 3nm M3 and M2 Pro processors," said DigiTimes, in a report focused on competition between chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung to secure 3nm chip orders. As expected, the report said TSMC will...
For the last several years, Apple has been working to develop its own 5G modem chip so that it won't need to rely on Qualcomm as a supplier, but according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple's efforts "may have failed."
Kuo says that his "latest survey" suggests that development on the chip has stalled, which means Qualcomm would remain the exclusive supplier for 5G chips for the 2023...
Apple on May 16 released iOS 15.5 and iPadOS 15.5, bringing improvements for Podcasts and Apple Cash, the ability to see Wi-Fi signal of HomePods, dozens of security fixes, and more.
Top Rated Comments
Jokes aside, this sounds awesome.