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Samsung Electronics has developed and started sampling 100GB, 200GB and 400GB MLC solid state drives (SSDs) for use as the primary storage in enterprise storage systems, according to the company.

By employing 30nm-class MLC NAND flash chips with a Toggle DDR interface and a controller that uses a 3Gb/s SATA interface, the performance of Samsung's new MLC-based SSDs closely approaches or even exceeds some of the SLC NAND-based SSDs now in the marketplace, the company claimed.

The new drives can process random read commands at 43,000 IOPS and random writes at 11,000 IOPS. This compares to a 15K RPM HDD which has an IOPS rate of 350, amounting to a 120X gain in random IOPS read performance and a 30X gain in random IOPS write performance.

In terms of power consumption, the new enterprise SSDs have a 150 times higher IOPS/Watt rate compared to 15K RPM HDDs, making them able to process 150 times more data while consuming the same amount of energy. In addition, the new Samsung SSD features an "end-to-end data protection" function with advanced data encryption algorithm to assure reliability and security for the drive.

Starting January 2011, Samsung will begin mass producing its new MLC-based enterprise drives.