SK Hynix prepares its first 300TB SSD – SSD

Some of the best SSDs we use are typically 1TB or 2TB in capacity, with consumer models reaching up to 8TB, and the minimum capacities are at the data center level, and SK Hynix’s recent announcement highlights just that dimension. The company revealed that it is in one development stage SSD with an unprecedented capacity of 300TB. However, it will take some time to see disks with this capacity up close.

The company announced the new album during a press conference in Seoul. Other interesting products are expected, including various memory proposals, while efforts are fully focused on enabling the South Korean company to support the construction of data centers as developments in the field of artificial intelligence continue. According to press reports, market analysts at SK Hynix estimate that the volume of data generated annually is on an upward trend and on an unprecedented scale. SK Hynix estimates there will be a jump of up to 660 zettabytes (ZB), compared to the 15 ZB recorded just a decade ago.

To give you an idea of ​​what this number means, 660ZB equals 660 billion terabytes. In 2018, studies estimated that about 175 ZBs would be produced in 2025 globally, but it is easy to understand that this number may have changed due to rapid developments in the field of artificial intelligence.

Beyond the current state of global data production, demand will inevitably rise from now on, so SK Hynix isn’t really ahead, it’s just paving the way for many other companies to follow, with massive capacity SSDs to support the processing loads that will be recorded in data centers. . Creating high capacity HDDs and SSDs is essential.

Unfortunately, little is currently known about the 300TB SSD, other than that it is under development. Press reports suggest that the drive may also challenge South Korea’s Samsung’s PBSSD (which currently goes up to 240TB and is available on a subscription basis) or ExaDrive’s 100TB SSD which, although a solid-state drive, is housed inside a chassis. Size 3.5 inches. , so it refers to hard disks. In parentheses, it costs $40,000.

It’s hard to imagine what kind of performance an SSD with this capacity could deliver, and this is something SK Hynix will have to address before launch. Achieving a good balance between capacity, speed and reliability will inevitably be difficult for an engine of this size, but it is also clear that solutions in this category are essential as we are still in the early stages of the AI ​​era.