Samsung has just announced their plans to launch a hard disk based on Flash Memory. The storage capacity for now max out at a decent 16 GBs and the aim of the company is to launch products, which can be used to prolong the battery life of laptops and handheld computers. In addition, due to lack of mechanical parts, the life of these drives is also expected to be lot more than traditional hard disks.

Flash Memory has a power consumption of just about 5% compared to ordinary drives and this alone can result in prolonged backup capacities in notebook computers. The resultant drives are also faster as data can be accessed at a much faster rate.

Statistics provided by the company claims that these solid-state disks provide access to data at a speed of two-and-a-half times the speed of current notebook hard drives. Samsung in their tests managed to read data at 57 MBps and write at 32MBps.

Lack of mechanical parts also means that there is less noise leading to products, which are more silent and generate less heat. The drives are also less temperature/humidity-sensitive enabling the manufacturers to use them in a wide range of products. The drives using this technology are expected to arrive in the retail market sometime later this year.