Next-Gen Tech, Triple-Core Controllers, And Hard Drives

After being live for a full 24 hours, the Samsung “Ask Me Anything” has officially concluded!

Epic thanks to the Samsung representatives who took the time out of their schedules to come and answer all the great questions our community had for them. We know this was a lot of work on their end, and we're greatly appreciative of the time taken to engage with the community here at Tom's Hardware. :)

For answering questions, a big thanks goes out to Ryan Smith of Samsung for being with us during the AMA. Also, last but not least, a mega-thanks to John Lucas at Samsung for helping to put this together.

Q. As more and more people are making the jump to SSD's, what does Samsung have in store for the upcoming generation of enthusiasts looking to get more bang for their buck out of their rigs?

A. Samsung has announced some exciting things this year: The industry's first consumer based PCIe SSD (XP941) which will allow notebook users to experience even better performance than before. In addition, we announced the first NVMe based SSD (XS1715) that will help bring PCIe to more server/datacenter customers and help it proliferate where it has previously only been leveraged in niche markets. Samsung also announced the second generation of our 3-bit MLC SSD's: 840 EVO on the retail side. The technology inside this 3-bit MLC SSD allows a more affordable price because Samsung is able to store 50% more bits in the same physical space. There was also a wave of other technology advancements coupled with the 840 EVO announcements such as TurboWrite and RAPID which enable incredible speeds to be experienced.

Q. Why do you use a triple core controller in your SSDs? Is it because some competitor used a dual core controller, or is it really the sweet spot in price/performance/power consumption?

A. Samsung's controllers are custom made for our SSDs. Because of that we have complete control over the features and functionality offered. There are numerous tasks that need to occur concurrently in any modern system, including SSDs. Some of the tasks included are handling read commands, write commands, managing Flash, garbage collection, etc. In order to offer the best experience and performance, our team has carefully selected all characteristics that go into our SSD, including the controller. Samsung's SSDs are completely vertically integrated, meaning that we control all key components that go into the SSD; this allows us to optimally design the SSD to offer best-in-class reliability and performance.

Q. What ever happened to the Spinpoint series HDDs?

A. Samsung no longer produces HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). Samsung believes that SSDs are the future of storage for PCs and Servers. Phones are all Flash. Tablets are all Flash. As the trend of PCs continues to offer thinner and lighter solutions and demand the responsiveness experienced on tablets/phones, SSDs are the solution going forward.

Q. Does Samsung think regular hard drives will ever be completely replaced by SSDs?

A. We are definitely seeing aggressive trends towards adopting SSDs into PCs, Servers, and Enterprise Storage. However, HDDs still have a place for slower-accessed large data. What has happened, and will continue to happen, is SSDs will continue to replace HDDs in particular applications. SSDs are definitely here to stay and have made it into virtually every datacenter and enterprise solution. In many of the new thin & light notebooks offered, the only options are SSDs. In other notebook offerings, you often see SSDs as an option or a SSD+HDD option. One thing we have heard time and time again from consumers that have experienced an SSD in their notebook is they would never go back to an HDD-based notebook. Converting to SSDs is a life changing event.