Seagate and Samsung have announced a partnership to develop and cross-license controller technologies for solid-state drives. The pair will target the enterprise market and will leverage Seagate's brand reputation in that segment. In addition to being the first or second largest storage drive manufacturer, Seagate has established a following with its Cheetah SCSI and SAS hard drives.

Meanwhile, Samsung brings its 30-nanometer MLC NAND flash memory technology to the table, which the titans will use in whatever controller technology they whip up. Seagate chairman Steve Luczo said you can expect forthcoming works to be quicker, more reliable, higher capacity, and cheaper. Samsung didn't say much in the press release, apart from hyping the energy efficiency of SSDs.

Conventional hard disk makers such as Seagate and Western Digital have been somewhat slow (or hesitant) to jump into the SSD market with both feet, but this venture suggests that they're finally warming up to the technology.