Samsung Aims For Petabyte SSDs With Future 3D NAND Tech But Won’t Hit Shelves Till 2030+

Will other storage sizes be available when they debut in 2030+?

Samsung recently announced that their newest 3D NAND tech will allow them to make solid-state drives with up to a petabyte of storage in the future. While this giant leap forward in capacity is exciting news for those who require the biggest and best for their computing needs, the reality is that these petabyte SSDs won’t be hitting store shelves for quite some time. In fact, we’re probably looking at a time frame of 2030 or beyond before these super huge drives reach the market.

There are a few key factors behind Samsung’s prediction. Firstly, the company must meet strict industry levels of quality to put out a viable product. This means they’ll need to make sure the drives are reliable, secure, fast, and most of all, contain no glitches. Samsung will also need to factor in the economies of scale and market demand when considering the eventual release of their Petabyte drives. After all, it would not only be a massive financial investment on their end, but also a big risk in terms of consumer reception.

The core technology behind these massive storage devices is Samsung’s 3D NAND tech. This is the most up-to-date form of non-volatile memory, allowing them to store more data in smaller spaces. This means that the individual data bits are stacked in layers to cram more information into less space. The result is amazing capacity for a solid-state drive with the potential for multi-terabyte SSDs substantially smaller than their hard drive counterparts.

For now though, we simply have to sit tight and wait for the technology and related manufacturing to catch up. It’s estimated that Samsung, and any other company developing petabyte SSDs, won’t see any consumer level applications of the technology for almost a decade at least. While we’ve already seen some uses for 3D NAND tech in the consumer realm, such as phones and tablets, right now it’s still relatively limited in terms of capacity.

As technology continues to advance, however, Samsung’s petabyte SSDs should eventually become a reality. We may even see multiple generations of the storage using various form factors and packaging. Until that time, we can still enjoy all the great advancements that flash memory developers have achieved in the past few years, such as ever-higher capacities and faster read/write speeds. There’s no doubt that, regardless of when the petabyte drives actually hit shelves, they will be a welcome addition to all our computing needs.