SSD tech is in a roll right now, with several of the big names promising big increases in capacity in the future. The latest firm to stake its claim is Samsung, which has just dropped a 61TB solid state drive into the market. Not only that, but the company even claims this new Samsung SSD can potentially contain up to 122TB of storage space.
Now, before you get carried away dreaming about the mammoth game library you could store on this colossal drive, this tech isn’t for anyone looking for the best SSD for gaming right now. Instead, the new Samsung BM1743 is aimed at enterprise customers, but it shows the tech does exist, and it will only be a matter of time before we see higher-capacity drives in our desktop PCs as well.
The BM1743 is built with Samsung’s v7 QLC V-NAND flash memory, where QLC stands for quad-level cell. This type of NAND memory can offer high capacities, but at the expense of performance compared to the triple-level cell (TLC) NAND used in most PC SSDs. Samsung’s latest QLC tech represents some serious scaling in capacity, though.
The BM1743 picks up from the previous BM1733a, but effectively quadruples this drive’s storage capacity from 15.36TB to 61.44TB.
The drive uses the U.2. form factor, where NAND chips are packed into a box that slots into a drive bay, a bit like a 2.5-inch SATA drive, but using the PCIe interface. In the case of the BM1743, it uses the PCIe 4.0 interface, with Samsung boasting a sequential read speed of 7,200MB/s, and a sequential write speed of 2,000MB/s.
However, Samsung also says the drive can alternatively come in a larger case using the E3.S form factor, and then gain even faster performance from the PCIe 5.0 interface, as used on today’s fastest gaming SSDs, such as the Crucial T705.
“Moreover, it has the potential to accommodate up to 122.88TB,” says Samsung in an almost throwaway comment about the BM1743 on its semiconductor blog. I mean, 122.88TB? I wouldn’t even know where to start with filling a drive that size in my PC. Meanwhile, WD recently also showed off a tiny 2Tb QLC cell that could be used in massive SSDs in the future.
While we can only fantasize about having 122TB SSDs in our gaming PCs for the moment, if you’re looking to upgrade your SSD, check out our Corsair MP700 Pro review, as this PCIe 5.0 SSD offers a solid balance of speed, thermals, and price. You can also read our full guide on how to install an M.2 SSD, where we take you through the process step by step.