Back in 2016, Samsung introduced its first 4TB solid state drives at a steep price of $1,499. But the company now wants to change that with its new line of SSDs aimed primarily at consumers. Although Samsung didn’t divulge any pricing information, the company makes it clear that these will be more affordable as it has begun ‘mass producing the industry’s first 4-bit (QLC, quad-level cell) 4TB SATA solid-state drive for consumers.’

With its new 1Tb 4-bit V-NAND chip, Samsung plans to produce a 128GB memory card for smartphones that will pave the way for higher capacities for high-performance memory storage.

Typically, as data stored within a memory cell increases from three bits to four, the chip capacity per unit area would rise and the electrical charge (used to determine information from a sensor) would decrease by as much as 50 percent, making it considerably more difficult to maintain a device’s desired performance and speed.

However, Samsung’s 4-bit 4TB QLC SATA SSD maintains its performance levels at the same level as a 3-bit SSD, by using a 3-bit SSD controller and TurboWrite technology, while increasing drive capacity through the use of 32 chips, all based on 64-layer fourth-generation 1Tb V-NAND.

The 4-bit QLC SSD enables a sequential read speed of 540 MB/s and a sequential write speed of 520 MB/s, and comes with a three-year warranty.

Samsung has plans to introduce several 4-bit consumer SSDs later this year with 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities in the widely used 2.5-inch form factor.

In addition, the company expects to provide M.2 NVMe SSDs for the enterprise this year and begin mass production of 4-bit fifth-generation V-NAND.