Toshiba to unveil 512 GB solid state drive at CES

Toshiba said Thursday that it will show off a new lineup of solid state drives at the Consumer Electronics Show including a 512 GB solid state drive.

Toshiba notes (statement, Techmeme) that the 2.50-inch 512 GB drive is an industry first and is based on 43 nanometer multi-level cell NAND. The family will also include 64 GB to 256 GB versions in 1.8 inch or 2.5 inch drive enclosures.

This second generation of read-write drives is supposed to improve performance with better boot and application loading times. Solid state drives are likely to become the standard on laptops in the future, but timing is an open question. Toshiba in its statement said:

Toshiba and many market analysts expect SSDs to begin to gain significant traction in the market in 2009, growing to approximately 10% of the notebook market by 2010, and 25% of the notebook market by 2012. Toshiba expects the value/performance of its MLC NAND-based SSD line-up to help speed the acceptance of solid state storage.

As for that lineup, here's a look at what Toshiba plans and the specifications: