Toshiba announced that they will begin production of 256 GB Solid State Drives (SSD) in the fourth quarter, according to DigiTimes on Monday. Pricing was not announced.

Samples have been available in September pending full production. The drives use the more advanced MLC controller rather than the SLC consumer grade controller and features wear leveling technology.

Performance was reported to be 70 MB/s write and 120 MB/s read via a 3.0 Gb/s SATA interface. The package is about 70 x 53 x 3 mm.

Because of the high capacity of these drives and the use of the more advanced MLC controller, prices could remain beyond the reach of mainstream notebook computers or the so-called netbooks and be aimed primarily at the data center for the time being.

The good news, however, is that the 64 GB and 128 GB SSDs now in use for notebook computers will likely be coming down further in price, making them attractive alternatives to hard disk drives (HDD) for many users.

Currently, Apple offers a 64 GB SSD option (instead of an 80 GB HDD) in the MacBook Air for an additional US$599.00. Toshibais 12.1-inch DynaBook NX has a 128 GB SSD option priced at about US$900.