Here's a rugged 8TB SSD that can withstand your abuse

A company out of Arizona called Smart High Reliability Solutions announced its newest drive today, a tough and tumble 8TB SSD designed for defense, aerospace, and industrial markets.

The new 8TB HRS-M1HC isn't a drive that will find its way into gaming systems, but it's still nice to see company's building high capacity SSDs. If NAND flash memory chip makers can get a handle on production, we'll eventually see higher capacity SSDs in the consumer space. For now, they're relegated to professional and commercial markets.

In this case, the 8TB HRS-M1HC is a 2.5-inch SSD with a SATA 6Gbps interface. It ships in a high-strength 9.5mm enclosure and offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 520MB/s and 500MB/s, respectively.

Underneath the hood are multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash chips. According to Smart HRC, these drives can operate at altitudes of up to 100,000 feet. They also can withstand temps ranging from -40C to 85C, and can tolerate shocks and vibrations up to 1,000g.

"The HRS-M1HC extends our M-Series product line giving our customers in the military and industrial markets a cost effective, high-density option for specialized applications." said Michael Guzzo, general manager of SMART HRS. "The M1HC is one of the most comprehensive, security-laden SSDs available from SMART HRS. The fact that we provide it in an MLC based drive gives customers additional flexibility when choosing a solution that best fits their need."

Smart HRC also offers its new rugged SSD in 4TB, 2TB, and 1TB capacities.

Smart HRC isn't the only one building high capacity SSDs. Samsung last year announced a 15.36TB SSD for enterprise storage systems, while Micron and WD both offer 8TB SSDs. WD also offers a 12TB model.

In case you're wondering, the largest capacity SSD to date is a 60TB SAS SSD model from Seagate.

Of course, it will be a long time before 60TB capacity SSDs trickle into the consumer market. As it stands right now, even 4TB SSDs are few and far between, and pricey—Samsung's 850 Evo streets for $1,380.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).