Many fans of technology know that most analysts are predicting that SSDs will replace the traditional HDD in computer systems in the coming years. For now at least that transition simply isn’t happening because of the low capacities of SSDs, the high cost of SSDs, and the shorter typical lifespan of a SSD.

Samsung announced that it now has its multi-level cell (MLC) SSDs in production in 128GB and 64GB capacities. The main benefit of using MLC NAND flash as opposed to single-level cell is the lifespan. Samsung says that its MLC SSDs will have a life span 20 times longer than that of typical hard drives in today’s computers.

The MLC SSDs give up performance to their SLC brothers though. Samsung’s MLC SSDs will have a write speed of 70MB/s and a read speed of 90MB/s, close to the performance of the SLC SSDs. One big benefit of the MLC SSD is low power consumption. Samsung says the MLC SSD only needs 0.2 watts of power at idle and 0.5 watts in active mode.

Samsung