SanDisk A110 PCIe SSD: Armed With The New M.2 Edge Connector

[cryan]

We got our hands on an early sample of SanDisk's A110 SSD. So what? Big deal? Not a chance. This thing is PCI Express-attached and sports the new M.2 edge connector. Read on to learn more about the next generation of solid-state storage connectivity.

SanDisk A110 PCIe SSD: Armed With The New M.2 Edge Connector : Read more

 

[Mike Friesen]

Awesome new stuff. Can't wait to see if this drive actually uses the full potential of the M2, and if Samsung or OCZ can one-up them.

 

[cryan]

[quotemsg=11487924,0,1299397]Awesome new stuff. Can't wait to see if this drive actually uses the full potential of the M2, and if Samsung or OCZ can one-up them.[/quotemsg]

Samsung actually has some pretty awesome M.2 PCIe action going on. We're trying to get our hands on everything, so stay tuned.


Regards,
Christopher Ryan

 

[Guest]

It will be nice to see vendors implement the NVMe connectors in the desktop mobo's, which in turn will redefine case design, as less storage space will be required for storage. I am aware that the initial intent is to direct these at the mobile market, but desktops can benefit as well.

 

[cryan]

[quotemsg=11488018,0,235955]It will be nice to see vendors implement the NVMe connectors in the desktop mobo's, which in turn will redefine case design, as less storage space will be required for storage. I am aware that the initial intent is to direct these at the mobile market, but desktops can benefit as well.[/quotemsg]

You'll really see NVMe take off on the desktop with the move towards SATA Express. A SSD on SATA Express will leverage NVMe and two PCIe Gen 3 lanes. Though some motherboards will (and already do) have M.2 connectors, M.2 really makes more sense in mobile applications. M.2 will only get traction on the desktop insofar as it will begin to replace mSATA. Tons of mainboards, especially smaller form factor products embrace mSATA, and moving to M.2 is a natural transition. However, M.2 drives are hard to find right now, and we really won't see a plethora of options until next year.

Regards,
Christopher Ryan

 

[nekromobo]

I got M.2 toshiba ssd in my Sony Vaio Pro 13.. review that?

and it should have samsung M.2 in some countries..

 

[CaedenV]

I may no longer have motivation to upgrade my system based on CPU specs, but with DDR4, M.2, new restive storage based SSDs, and better chipset features I will still have enough reason to upgrade in a year or two.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[quotemsg=11488122,0,1302170][quotemsg=11488018,0,235955]It will be nice to see vendors implement the NVMe connectors in the desktop mobo's, which in turn will redefine case design, as less storage space will be required for storage. I am aware that the initial intent is to direct these at the mobile market, but desktops can benefit as well.[/quotemsg]

You'll really see NVMe take off on the desktop with the move towards SATA Express. A SSD on SATA Express will leverage NVMe and two PCIe Gen 3 lanes. Though some motherboards will (and already do) have M.2 connectors, M.2 really makes more sense in mobile applications. M.2 will only get traction on the desktop insofar as it will begin to replace mSATA. Tons of mainboards, especially smaller form factor products embrace mSATA, and moving to M.2 is a natural transition. However, M.2 drives are hard to find right now, and we really won't see a plethora of options until next year.

Regards,
Christopher Ryan
[/quotemsg]

That's what I was thinking. SATA Express is going to be fast enough for now as I have used PCIe SSDs before (OCZ Revo based drive) and compared to my 520 its hard to notice a difference, especially since there are other bottlenecks stopping it from being able to utilize that bandwidth.

This will be great for ultra portable systems though and ITX systems.

 

[cryan]

[quotemsg=11488367,0,178265]I got M.2 toshiba ssd in my Sony Vaio Pro 13.. review that?

and it should have samsung M.2 in some countries..[/quotemsg]

Absolutely... just send it my way and consider it done.

Regards,
Christopher Ryan

 

[m32]

Christopher Ryan, I'll take this off of your hands.

Regards,
m32

 

[mikeangs2004]

will there be RAID or SLI/CFX for PCIe based SSD's?
I don't think so b/c it's already way above 6G limit.

 

[markhahn]

the power numbers don't make a lot of sense. I suspect either the pcie interface is being kept in a high-power mode (plls running, etc) or else your molex is supplying power to other stuff on the board. (there must be a dc-dc regulator on the auxiliary card, since molex provides only 12,5.)

 

[cryan]

[quotemsg=11495813,0,139026]the power numbers don't make a lot of sense. I suspect either the pcie interface is being kept in a high-power mode (plls running, etc) or else your molex is supplying power to other stuff on the board. (there must be a dc-dc regulator on the auxiliary card, since molex provides only 12,5.)[/quotemsg]

This is almost certainly true. I mean, we know it uses DC to DC to step the 5v down to 3.3v. But oddly, SanDisk rates the max write power consumption at 5.5w, and I could only get it max at 3.5w. Of course, it also possesses a deep slumber state, but that's contingent on having a L1.0 PCIe endpoint, and that hasn't even been ratified yet by PCI-SIG.

So definitely take the power consumption results with a grain of salt. There are challenges to testing this drive in this way.


Regards,
Christopher Ryan

 

[cryan]

[quotemsg=11492858,0,279642]will there be RAID or SLI/CFX for PCIe based SSD's?
I don't think so b/c it's already way above 6G limit.[/quotemsg]

If you happened to have the ability to run two+ PCIe SSDs, M.2 or otherwise, you can always soft-raid them. There are reasons why you'd want to avoid such a setup, but it'd totally work. Intel's 910 PCIe SSD shows 2 or 4 drives to the OS and then they can be soft-raided from there, for instance.


Regards,
Christopher Ryan

 

[abbadon_34]

what command line switches were use in robocopy?

 

[mikeangs2004]

Is there TRIM/garbage collection?

 

[Dax corrin]

Awesome stuff, wish I could afford it.

 

[Blaise170]

It seems like new progress is being made in the field of NAND every day. I can't wait until you can get high capacity drives for around the same price as HDDs, but I've heard that even as late as 2017 SSD storage will only have a 33% share.

 

[ryyple]

I'm a complete novice to all this stuff, yet I have a few questions that maybe someone can answer.

Are these M2 devices still considered SATA drives?
Using a PCIe (or other) interface for the M2 how could you clone these devices?
Can these devices then be cloned using a standard HDD duplicator?
Is there such a thing as a M2 "adapter" that plugs into the above duplicator?

Thanks for your response.

 

[tpidner17]

Christopher,

On page four of this review, in the maximum 4kb speed chart, it says "in MB/s [higher is better]." However, shouldn't that refer to the fact that it is measuring max IOps, rather than write speed? It seems like a type to me, so I wanted to let you know.