SATA Express Cables and SSD's?

[dreballs]

I've been looking for SATA Express cables and SSD's that are optimized for its 10Gigabits/s transfer speeds, but I have not been able to find either on Newegg, Amazon etc.

Im looking for cables that connect to this light gray port

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#/media/File:SATA_Express_connectors_on_a_computer_motherboard.jpg

Im also looking for SSDs with regular SATA connectors that have read/write speeds of around 1Gigabyte/s. The only SSDs I've found that have such speed are M.2 or PCIe and thats not what i'm looking for.

Do either of these items exist?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Normal SATA maxes out at 6Gb/s, so with overhead, you won't find any SATA drives above ~550MB/s.

SATA Express has kind of been stillborn. There's no reason not to go straight to M.2 for SSDs, and conventional storage doesn't need any more than 1.5Gb/s SATA, 3Gb/s at most.

 

[TonyRoma]

Sata Express is a dead duck as Someone Somewhere suggested. You might as well just RAID0 2x SSD's if you want that sort of performance. But ideally get M.2 which annihilates all other storage options right now. IF your motherboard doesn't support M.2 buy addon PCIe card to plug it into. Something like Samsung SM951 or 950 Pro and best bang per buck.

 

[1LiquidPC]

SATA Express is pretty much a "dead" technology already since M.2 is taking off. Like mentioned above, have a look at 950 PRO(ordered on myself) Just need an M.2 slot or PCI-E adapter card. If you want to boot from it(requires NVMe), you'll need Z97, Z170, or X99 platform thlough I believe support is being added to some Z87 boards. Any reason for specifically needing SATA Express?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

There are no SATA Express cables or SATA Express ssd's. SATA Express was a failed effort by the SATA industry to extend the life of SATA. The plan did not work because the new M.2 and PCIe ssd's performance and versatility exceeded SATA Express performance before any SATA Express ssd's were ever manufactured.

There is one interesting aspect that most consumers and novices are not aware of. The SATA Express header/connector on motherboards consists of two SATA 3 6Gb/s headers plus a third smaller header that are joined together to form one large SATA Express header. A consumer can connect SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's to the SATA Express header. The ssd's will perform as SATA 3 ssd's.

There are no standard 2.5 inch SATA 3 6Gb/s solid state drives that perform at 1GB/s. SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's are technically limited to data transmission rates of about 550 MB/s. For the kind of performance you mentioned you would have to use an M.2 or PCIe ssd.

There is another reason why SATA Express was passed over in favor of M.2 ssd's. That reason is size. The very small size of M.2 ssd's allows them to be used in any type of pc from a tiny tablet, to notebooks, laptops, desktops, and even gaming devices. The M.2 ssd's can also be mounted on an adapter card which makes them PCIe ssd's. It is pretty much one size fits all which helps reduce manufacturing costs. Samsung calls it ssd's for the masses.

I maintain an ssd database listed in a sticky at the very top of this forum section. Here is the link:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

The database is divided into sections from the newest PCIe 3.0 x 4 ssd's all the way down to mSATA. The categories represent performance from the top all the way to the bottom. For each brand and model there are links to technical reviews. The reviews are in English and many other languages for the benefit of international visitors.

 

[TonyRoma]

Hi there Johnny Lucky, I just had a quick look over your website. Impressive, well done. I'll be bookmarking your site for sure.

 

[dreballs]

SATA Express is pretty much a "dead" technology already since M.2 is taking off. Like mentioned above, have a look at 950 PRO(ordered on myself) Just need an M.2 slot or PCI-E adapter card. If you want to boot from it(requires NVMe), you'll need Z97, Z170, or X99 platform thlough I believe support is being added to some Z87 boards. Any reason for specifically needing SATA Express?

Well I was just hoping the prices for them would be lower than the SM950/951. The board I'm buying is ITX so only one PCIe slot(which will have a GTX970 in it). It also has Ultra M.2 but I can't afford those SSD's. Could I get similar performance if I had two good SATA SSD's in Raid0?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The SM951 SSDs were leaked OEM ones, so pretty rare, hence the high prices.

The 950 Pro should be a fair bit more reasonably priced, though still more than cheap-as-chips SATA drives: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/samsungs-950-pro-m-2-ssd-pairs-nvme-with-v-nand-for-eye-popping-performance/

Do you really need the performance? We usually advise against SSD RAID, because you really won't notice the difference.

 

[1LiquidPC]

What kind of speed & capacity are your looking for w/ a RAID 0 SSD config?

 

[dreballs]

The SM951 SSDs were leaked OEM ones, so pretty rare, hence the high prices.

The 950 Pro should be a fair bit more reasonably priced, though still more than cheap-as-chips SATA drives: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/samsungs-950-pro-m-2-ssd-pairs-nvme-with-v-nand-for-eye-popping-performance/

Do you really need the performance? We usually advise against SSD RAID, because you really won't notice the difference.

To be quite honest, I am a novice at PCs. I've used Macs the last 15 years. Ive been doing research on building a PC since January, figuring out what components are best, becoming familiar with PC terminology(sooooo many abbreviations!). I probably don't need performance grade speed, but I thought I should make it as "future-proof" as possible so I don't have to build or buy for a long time(10+ years), knowing that SSD's get slower as time passes. Thats why I'm going with Skylake and a board that has the latest I/Os(though I wish it had thunderbolt 3). I thought RAID0 might increase performance and decrease degradation. You get about 20-30% faster in Raid0 x 2 right? Also i've seen couple deals where it's cheaper to buy 2 small(128GB) SSDs, than 1 big(256GB) one.

 

[dreballs]

What kind of speed & capacity are your looking for w/ a RAID 0 SSD config?

512GB if I'm lucky, but most likely 256GB. I want get as close to 1GB/s read/write as I can. I like how RAID 0 generally increases SSDs lifespan, assuming no drive failure of course(I'll have a 1TB HDD too). How much faster is M.2 than SATA3? What's M.2 average lifespan or failure rate compared to SSDs?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I like how RAID 0 generally increases SSDs lifespan

Source? Haven't heard that one; 2x256GB shouldn't be any different from a comparable 512GB.

M.2 is still an SSD. For the nicer ones, read can be 2.5GB/s and write 1.5GB/s.

Why do you need these high bandwidths, though?

 

[TonyRoma]

You won't find a more awesome solution than a Samsung 950 Pro right now. A 256Gb M.2 version wouldn't cost much more than 2x Samsung 850 EVO 120Gb ones and the performance is in a different league entirely. For the sake of a few extra quid the performance increase is more than worth it.

Before you go parting with cash though, you must check compatibility with your motherboard thoroughly. I'm using a Samsung SM951 NVMe 256Gb, the speed is well... bonkers.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Also, think about whether it's really going to be worth it over something like a 500GB 850 Evo.

 

[dreballs]

I like how RAID 0 generally increases SSDs lifespan

Source? Haven't heard that one; 2x256GB shouldn't be any different from a comparable 512GB.

M.2 is still an SSD. For the nicer ones, read can be 2.5GB/s and write 1.5GB/s.

Why do you need these high bandwidths, though?

I heard that on some reviews I saw on Youtube and some that I read online(this site included). Its not very significant but, from what I heard/read, Since the drives are splitting the data, they're splitting the workload, working half as hard so they last longer. Could be wrong but thats what I heard/read repeatedly. Thanks for the M.2 info.

Like I said I don't necessarily need such performance, I just want this to be a really great PC so I don't have to build/buy another for at least a decade, barring component failure, knowing that performance decreases with age.

 

[dreballs]

You won't find a more awesome solution than a Samsung 950 Pro right now. A 256Gb M.2 version wouldn't cost much more than 2x Samsung 850 EVO 120Gb ones and the performance is in a different league entirely. For the sake of a few extra quid the performance increase is more than worth it.

Before you go parting with cash though, you must check compatibility with your motherboard thoroughly. I'm using a Samsung SM951 NVMe 256Gb, the speed is well... bonkers.

Wow thats awesome! Thats exactly what I want. Im getting the Asrock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac, Ultra M.2 slot underneath(which is awesome imo). For ATX boards and a 6700k, if they had an M.2 slot being used by the SM951, could you use multiple GPUs? Im not familiar with the way M.2 PCIe x 4 SSDs decreases PCIe lanes.

 

[dreballs]

Also, think about whether it's really going to be worth it over something like a 500GB 850 Evo.

Ya thats definitely something I gotta think about. I've had only a 256GB SSD in my Mac, supplemented with a few USB Flash Drives, the last 8 years and I've gotten by. Thats probably where my want for speed comes, those flash drives are soooooo slow. And I've definitely noticed a decrease in performance from my SSD over the years.