Published on 11:42 AM, August 16, 2015

Samsung unveils world's largest hard drive

Samsung has unveiled what is touted to be the 'world's largest hard drive' with 16 terabytes (TB) of capacity.

The PM1633a is a 2.5-inch solid state drive and packs in it 15.36 TB of storage. By comparison, the largest hard drives made by Seagate and Western Digital offer 8 to 10 TB of storage, reports IBNLive.com.

Samsung has been able to squeeze in the capacity with the use of its new 256 bit (32 GB) NAND flash die, which is twice the capacity of 128 bit NAND dies, the Indian online news portal reports quoting PC Magazine.

It managed to insert 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D V-NAND into a single die; up from 24 layers in 2-13 and 36 layers in 2014.

The Samsung hard drive uses between 480 and 500 of the new NAND flash chips. The company also showed off a server with 48 of the new PM1633a SSDs installed for a total of 768 TB.

Although there is no official word on the pricing of the world's largest hard drive, but it is expected to cost dear around $7000.