Samsung Launches First 1TB mSATA SSD, High Capacity Ultrabooks Can't Be Far Behind

Big capacity stuffed into a small size SSD

Ultrabooks and laptops in general aren't getting any chunkier these days, and to accommodate increasingly thin profiles, mSATA form factor solid state drives (SSDs) are taking the place of 2.5-inch drives. That doesn't mean you'll need to give up storage space. Samsung today launched its 840 Evo mSATA SSD line, among which is the industry's first 1TB mSATA-based SSD, the company claims.

These drives are an extension of Samsung's Evo family introduced back in July. They're about a quarter of the size of a traditional 2.5-inch SSD, yet offer the same high density and performance. The drives use 128Gb NAND flash memory built from a 10nm-class manufacturing process. Note the "class" qualifier, which doesn't mean these are 10nm chips -- they're actually built on a 19nm process.

Tricky marketing aside, these drives are a mere 3.85mm thin and weigh just 8.5 grams. They're available in 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities. The 1TB model boasts 98,000 random read and 90,000 random write IOPS, as well as 540MB/s sequential write and 520MB/s sequential read performance.

The 840 Evo mSATA SSD line will be available later this month. No pricing information has yet been announced.