At the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2018, Samsung announced mass production of the world’s first QLC SSD, which offers capacities of up to 4 TB and performance levels that can saturate the current SATA interface with a sequential read/write performance of 540 MB/s and 520 MB/s, respectively.
Samsung starts mass production of QLC SSDs
QLC NAND provides users with 4 data memory bits per cell, allowing a 100% increase in memory capacity compared to MLC NAND and a 33% increase compared to traditional TLC NAND, allowing Samsung to offer higher capacity while using fewer NAND arrays, increasing the price and SSD memory capacity.
If you want to see larger, cheaper SSDs, this is the right way. Samsung claims that its 64-bit, 4-bit QLC V-NAND SATA SSD can provide the same level of performance as an equivalent SSD with 3-bit V-NAND TLC while offering a three-year warranty.
In addition to the SATA-based consumer SSDs, Samsung plans to launch the SSD M.2 NVMe with QLC technology later this year. Samsung plans to offer its QLC-based consumer units with 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capabilities, although Samsung did not specify a release date or prices at that time.
These new devices are currently already in full production and are expected to shine brightly in 2019.