Samsung Corp. isn't just pushing the envelope in storage capacity of solid-state drives; it's also working with software makers to boost SSD performance on operating systems. The company today said that it was in talks with Microsoft Corp. to improve the performance of SSDs on the Windows operating system.

The speed and manner in which SSDs fetch and cache data are different from those of hard drives, said Michael Yang, flash marketing manager at Samsung. Samsung hopes to work with Microsoft to boost SSD performance on Windows by discovering optimal packet sizes for data transfers and the best ways to read and write files, for example.

"We have been so used to hard drives for so many years, Windows is optimized for that obviously," Yang said.

Windows is designed to fetch and cache data using rotating media, but by working with Microsoft, Samsung wants to distinguish SSDs from hard drives on the Windows operating system, Yang said. Yang declined to provide further information on the discussions with Microsoft.

It is generally thought that SSDs could replace hard drives, but SSDs and hard drives differ in data sizes and how Windows should treat both types of drives, said Gregory Wong, an analyst at Forward Insights.