Looking To The Future: NAND Flash Scales Up to 64 TB SSDs in 2030

Over the past few years, the NAND Flash industry has gone through two major shifts in technology: the movement from 1 to 2 to 3 bits per cell, which directly increases bit density and capacity, and also moving from planar flash to variants of 3D stacking. Stacking can refer to individual NAND dies, as well as stacking those dies into a single package: both of these features are being extensively investigated to increase density also. There are two main drivers for this: reduction in cost, and capacity. However, despite this, the predictions in the ITRS report for NAND flash are primarily looking at improvements to numbers of layers rather than lithography changes or moving to more bits per cell.

As we can see, TLC (according to the report) is here to stay. QLC, or whatever you want to call it, is not mentioned. The two changes are the number of memory layers, moving from 32 today to 128 around 2022 and then 256/512 by 2030, and the number of word-lines in one 3D NAND string. This gives a product density projection of 256 Gbit packages today to 1 Tbit packages in 2022 and 4 Tbit packages in 2030.

If we apply this to consumer drives available today, we can extrapolate potential SSD sizes for the future. The current Samsung 850 EVO 4 TB uses Samsung’s 48-layer third generation V-NAND to provide 256 Gbit TLC parts. Alongside the 4 TB of memory, the controller requires 4 GB of DRAM, which is another concern to remember. So despite the report stating 256 Gbit in 32-layer, we have 256 Gbit in 48-layer, which is a difference primarily in die-size predictions for the report. Still, if we go off of the product density we should see 12 TB SSDs by 2020, 16 TB in 2022, 48 TB in 2028 and 64 TB drives in 2030. It’s worth noting that the ITRS report doesn’t mention power consumption in this table, nor controller developments which may be a substantial source of performance and/or capacity implementations.

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  • Hrel - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    10 years to double single core performance, damn. Honestly thought Sandy Bridge was a bigger improvement than that. Only 4 times faster in multi-core too.

    Glad to see my 4570S is still basically top of the line. Kinda hard to believe my 3 year old computer is still bleeding edge, but I guess that's how little room for improvement there is now that Moore's law is done.

    Guess if Windows 11 brings back normal functionality to the OS and removes "apps" entirely I'll have to upgrade to a DX12 capable card. But I honestly don't think that's gonna happen.

    I really have no idea what I'm gonna do OS wise. Like, I'm sure my computers won't hold up forever. But Windows 10 is unusable and Linux doesn't have proper support still.

    Computer industry, once a bastion of capitalism and free markets, rife with options and competition is now become truly monastic. Guess I'm just lamenting the old days, but at the same time I am truly wondering how I'll handle my computing needs in 5 years. Windows 10 is totally unacceptable.
  • Michael Bay - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    I like how desperate you anti-10 shills are getting.
    More!
  • Namisecond - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    I do not think that word means what you think it means...
  • TormDK - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    You are right - there is not going to be a Windows 11, and Microsoft is not moving away from "apps".

    So you seems stuck between a rock in a hard place if you don't want to go on Linux or a variant, and don't want to remain in the Microsoft ecosystem.
  • mkaibear - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    >Windows 10 is unusable

    Now, just because you're not capable of using it doesn't mean everyone else is incapable. There are a variety of remedial computer courses available, why not have a word with your local college?
  • AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    4570S isn't basically top of the line. It and the i5 are 65W TDP. The latest 91W i7 is easily 33% faster. Just run the benchmark in CPU-Z to see how you compare.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    Linux Mint has been my primary OS since early 2013. I've been tinkering with various distros starting with Slackware in the late 1990s as an alternative to Windows. I'm not entirely sure what you mean my "doesn't have proper support" but I don't encourage people to make a full conversion to leave Windows behind just because the current user interface isn't familiar.

    There's a lot more you have to figure out when you switch from Windows to Linux than you'd need to learn if going from say Windows 7 to Windows 10 and the transition isn't easy. My suggestion is to purchase a second hand business class laptop like a Dell Latitude or HP Probook being careful to avoid AMD GPUs in doing so and try out a few different mainstream distros. Don't invest a lot of money into it and be prepared to sift through forums seeking out answers to questions you might have about how to make your daily chores work under a very different OS.

    Even now, I still keep Windows around for certain games I'm fond of but don't want to muck around with in Wine to make work. Steam's Linux-friendly list had gotten a lot longer in the past couple of years thanks to Valve pushing Linux for the Steam Box and I think by the time Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft, I'll be perfectly happy leaving Windows completely behind.

    That said, 10 is a good OS at its core. The UI doesn't appeal to everyone and it most certainly is collecting and sending a lot of data about what you do back to Microsoft, but it does work well enough if your computing needs are in line with the average home user (web browsing, video streaming, gaming...those modest sorts of things). Linux can and does all those things, but differently using programs that are unfamiliar...oh and GIMP sucks compared to Photoshop. Just about every time I need to edit an image in Linux, I get this urge to succumb to the Get Windows 10 nagware and let Microsoft go full Big Brother on my computing....then I come to my senses.
  • Michael Bay - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    GIMP is not the only, ahem, "windows ecosystem alternative" that is a total piece of crap on loonixes. Anything outside of the browser window sucks, which tends to happen when your code maintainers are all dotheads and/or 14 years old.
  • Arnulf - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    I finally relegated my E6400-based system from its role as my primary computer and bought a new one (6700K, 950 Pro SSD, 32 GB RAM) a couple of weeks ago.

    While the new one is certainly faster at certain tasks the biggest advantage for me is significantly lower power consumption (30W idle, 90W under load versus 90W idle and 160-180W under load for the old one) and consequently less noise and less heat generation.

    Core2 has aged well for me, especially after I added a Samsung 830 to the system.
  • Demon-Xanth - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link

    I still run an i5-750, NVMe is pretty much the only reason I want to upgrade at all.

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