News - Samsung making PCIe based SSDs for Ultrabook designs

[HEXUS]

These units are said to be 2.5X faster than their SATA based bretheren.

Read more.

[Daletur328]

Lets hope its not going to be a big price hike per Gb. Got plenty of PCIe slots free.

[OilSheikh]

An SSD is basically RAM , right ?

[cameronlite]

An SSD is basically RAM , right ?

To the point that they're both solid state storage devices. RAM is volatile and requires power to remember data and SSDs are non volatile and requires no power to remember data.

[AEGIS]

A laptop running off pcie ssd is gonna be super fast but yet very expensive.
Wonder if it's gonna have raid.

[minicale]

PCI ssds cost a lot so I bet that one that fits in a laptop will cost a stupid amount.

[harryj1995]

Cost per gram

[Fraz]

PCI ssds cost a lot so I bet that one that fits in a laptop will cost a stupid amount.

Well, the new Macbook Airs will be equipped with these. Whilst a macbook air is quite expensive, it's not stupidly so.

[watercooled]

An SSD is basically RAM , right ?

Well, no not really. Talking about current SSDs, as cameronlite says, they both store data without moving parts, but the way in which they do it is very different, and they're used for different purposes.

There were a few early SSDs which used banks of DRAM sticks and battery backup, but they didn't really gain much market share as they were bulky, needed a constant power supply (loss would cause instant loss of the entire contents), and were unreasonably expensive in terms of cost/GB.

[Malphas]

Existing PCI SSD's cost a lot because they're almost all enterprise class products with SLC NAND and high capacities. There's no technical reason why an SSD should cost more just because it uses a PCIe interface instead of a SATA one with all other things being equal.

[Funkstar]

Existing PCI SSD's cost a lot because they're almost all enterprise class products with SLC NAND and high capacities. There's no technical reason why an SSD should cost more just because it uses a PCIe interface instead of a SATA one with all other things being equal.

Absolutely.

Full sized PCIe SSDs are were originally a large RAID card with multiple SATA SSDs mounted on them. Hence the massive cost. I'm sure some of the newer ones will be far more integrated, they will use some form of RAID across multiple banks of NAND and multiple controller chips, but they might skip the controller -> SATA interface -> SATA RAID -> PCIe path and go with controller -> RAIDish controller -> PCIe

This Samsung SSD is simple MLC NAND -> controller -> PCIe. No reason for it to be any more expensive than an equivalent standard 2.5" SSD. Possible it could be cheaper because there looks to be physically less to it (no case to fit) but might be a bit more expensive due to them not making nearly as many of them.

[watercooled]

AFAIK we'd need some standardisation before that could happen, as there are problems with compatibility when it comes to PCIe storage, especially booting from them. As you say, current drives tend to use some sort of SATA interface, whether it's discrete, emulated, or otherwise.

[Noli]

The M.2 standard seems to be better in pretty much every way than mSATA yet is still very rare. It really needs to take off fast as it's got key advantages in speed and size and yet seems to be fighting a losing battle with mSATA.

[crossy]

This Samsung SSD is simple MLC NAND -> controller -> PCIe. No reason for it to be any more expensive than an equivalent standard 2.5" SSD. Possible it could be cheaper because there looks to be physically less to it (no case to fit) but might be a bit more expensive due to them not making nearly as many of them.

They're not making M2's at the moment but that can change pretty rapidly. Apple's already a customer, as are Samsung's own kit (reputedly). So how long before the big three of Dell, HP and Leonovo want to get in on the act? And I don't think it'd take much imagination to figure out the volume demand that this illustrious trio could generate!

I remember the original SSD's as being posit'd "for laptops only - because they need the resiliance", so I can't see any reason why the same move-to-the-desktop can't happen here.

Bung your OS and apps on a RAID1+0 array of four of these? (although with something THAT fast, would the 'raid1' part offer any advantages?)

Of course, Samsung aren't the only game in town, M500 M.2 SSD – The Secret is Out

[3dcandy]

No reason why M2 can't be used in a desktop at all. M-Itx will bring these to market first in my opinion, followed by "normal" form factors

[Roobubba]

Well much as I hate Apple, the upcoming Mac Pro will be using PCI-E SSD storage, I presume it's Samsung-made like these that they are using in macbook pros and ultrabooks... Hopefully this trend will continue, as the speed benefits are obvious, as are the less well-documented benefits of not using a SATA plug: one of the most unreliable connectors known to mankind!!