There are solid-state
drives with big storage capabilities, and itty-bitty solid-state drives
that fit nicely into ultra-slim notebooks, but there are no itty-bitty
SSDs with big desktop-class storage capabilities. Well, at least until
today.
On Monday, Samsung
announced the 840 EVO mini-SATA SSD, which packs a full 1TB of
blazing-fast solid state storage into a pint-sized 1.5-inch mSATA form
factor. That's a full inch thinner than a standard 2.5-inch laptop hard
drive.
The new 840 EVO is the
first mSATA drive to crack the 1TB barrier, and it didn't sacrifice any
speed to do so: According to Samsung, the SSD hits 540MB/s write and
520MB/s read times, and it packs the same TurboWrite technology as its standard-sized 840 EVO brethren.
Speaking of, the 2.5-inch 840 EVO SSD delivered a big speed boost to the bevy of notebooks we tested it with
earlier this year. Here's hoping the mSATA variants are just as
impressive. Samsung's 1TB 840 EVO mSATA drive will launch globally later
this month, alongside cousins packing 120, 250, and 500GB of storage
space. Alas, Samsung's staying mum about price points for now
