Toshiba announces first SSD drives using new mini-SATA interface
By Nilay Patel 
posted Sep 21st 2009 4:20PM
posted Sep 21st 2009 4:20PM
Read - SATA-IO announces mini-SATA standard
Read - Toshiba announces first mSATA drives
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to get low ranked
Oh wow, that doesn't look like mini PCI-e at all! I'm sure there will be no confusion whatsoever!
I was about to say the same thing. This is going to get messy.
Are these the same geniuses that came up with eSATA, which lacks power?
We can all rest easy now.
I'll stick with my Mini PCI express, thanks
Wow, weird coincidence. My fiancee's little brother just got a SSD that we though(didn't read close enough) was for PCI-E but ended up actually being for mini PCI-E for Eee PC's. Speaking of which, anyone know if there's some kind of adapter that would make it work?
You wouldn't want it to work...those things use low-end controllers and are pretty slow...about inbetween a 5400 and 7200 laptop hard drive.
@Kamokazi: Ya, I know, but the problem is that I basically have a $149.00 brick right now :(
http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/pex1-mini-h-p-8291.html?ref=base
That's all I could find offhand..very expensive but they're out there...if you look a little more you might find a cheaper one. Unfortunately with the looks of the PCB on that it's not a simple pinout adaptation...
@Kamokazi: Damn, ya, that's a bit too expensive(also, I know those SSD's aren't true mini PCIE; they're the same form factor but the pins don't match up correctly, so I'm not even 100% that it would work). Guess it's off to ebay.
jizz.. in my pants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4
Doesn't look very reliable. Sure, its not made to be reconnected all the time but a little bit of reliability doesn't hurt.
What are you talking about?
Yeah the spacing between the contact is freakishly small, but with so many people behind it they must have tested it and have material engineers who swear it's alright.
I'm going to remove your Ctrl and R keys.
ANOTHER Interface. Thanks.
I'm not convinced this is good news - the new connector looks barely smaller than the current one and would force everyone to buy adapters to ensure the new devices work in current machines, it also doesn't support the 6Gb/s standard which may not really be useful for today's SSD's, but shows a lack of foresight for future devices - how long before mSATA2 is announced? The cynical would suggest this is a bit of a revenue generator as opposed to any real benefit to portability. At least it's electrically compatible I suppose.
The 3Gb/s SATA-2 interfaces on mSATA is more than fast enough for netbooks! LOL...
Seems the larger is 1.4 times as large, or 40% larger I guess you could say, I guess any smaller would become too tricky for consumer level devices or edge connectors.
uh we want more storage not less.
Mini Sata already exists. That is what Optical Slim Sata drives use! More confusion! Wonderful! And now mini PCI-E connector is also called Mini Sata, even though it different pinouts. WTF.
Reminds me of the Gnet ADSL modem I used to use. One of the Ethernet ports, is actually a serial port. EVIL.
most cisco routers use a yellow rj45 jack for a serial terminal. its a pretty standard thing to do,.
Wait...was I the only one thrilled that laptop drives & desktop drives finally used a common interface? I thought I might finally be rid of those laptop IDE to standard IDE adapters...
Me too! Just so handy to be able to directly plug a notebook drive into a desktop if you need to.
Are those from Minnesota?
I have always wondered why sata has so many power lines on it.
I think perhaps they were chosen so they can have the heavy duty 12 volts for the 'old' normal rotational HD's and the 5 volt for the electronics and/or more modern notebook type low power drives and 3.3 volt for future SSD's.
Since the normal HD's and molex-to-sata power plugs and early PSU's simply didn't have all the voltages, and didn't need to, but I imagine that for devices that don't spin a heavy platter and move arms you really don't need to have 12 volts and you can prevent downconverting it to the 3.3 volt used when it's directly available
On the other hand I read this: "SATA 2.6 first defined the 6pin slimline connector, intended for smaller form-factors; e.g., notebook optical drives." (with 3.3v and 5V only)
And "The micro connector originated with SATA 2.6. It is intended for 1.8-inch hard drives. There is also a micro data connector, which it is similar to the standard data connector but is slightly thinner." (also only 5&3.3v)
So perhaps they looked ahead too much, and had to deal with the reality of PSU's at first not going through the trouble of connecting 3.3v and so making the 'standard' non standard and pointless and now decided to be realistic about it and on request of the industry's real need define a new low power connector without all the non-used lines that fits better with tiny drives too.
Oh and some pins were set up so you can hotplug the power without frying things since SATA is hot plugable and it wouldn't do to have the ability to unplug the drive but not the power.
Seems like a good thing to me. Sure a lot of netbooks are using the SATA over PCIe connector, but they're also using different form factors too so the ones that work in a Dell Mini 9 (5mm long) can't accept the drives from the EEE PCs (7mm long). Etc. And of course lots of them actually use PATA over mini-PCIe rather than SATA. Ugh.
A new standard is fine. Its a developing area. Calm down. Right now what we have is a LACK of standards. This is a good thing.
Now WTF that thing on the left is I have no idea. But the mSATA connector and form factor is going to be a big deal in years to come.
This may even become standard in non-netbooks soon. I can imagine for a couple of years that laptops smaller than 17" that only have one physical drive bay might support one of this plus a drive bay, allowing you to use an SSD for your boot/application disk, and a rotating 2.5" drive for your media. Sure once SSDs kill off the rotating media you won't need that, but by then we might be using these things everywhere rather than just in netbooks. Nobody hates thinner/lighter/less power hungry do they?
The obvious question I'd have re. SSDs is whether this form factor allows enough flexibility to hit the performance levels you could get with a larger drive. Like Intel's SSDs do 10 lanes in parallel. Can you do that with this few chips and this small a device? Anybody know?
I don't see SSD based on flash kill of rotational the coming 15 to 20 years, sure they won't be the primary anymore perhaps and rotational will become the backup medium, but kill off is unlikely.
Another medium might though, some new technology.
And in regard to your 10 lane question, this is about the standard for the connector, the devices in the picture are not relevant, it's about the connectors as I understand it, the standard for the formats of the attached devices is more a personal propriety thing and to use it in non toshiba devices you'd put it in a 2.5" holder which is the official (JEDEC) size standard available.
Link on the announcement of the new connectors:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090921005517&newsLang=en
Quote:
"Intel Developer Forum 2009, San Francisco
BEAVERTON, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of serial ATA (SATA™) technology, today announced it is developing a specification for a mini-SATA (mSATA™) interface connector. This new low-profile connector will enable more effective SATA integration in small form factor applications. "
And one of one of the companies:
"“SSD technology can work inside of virtually any form factor, so the new SATA specification should go a long way in encouraging extremely compact SSD storage designs,” said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc."
J Stro-
Ever heard of F5?
J Stro-
don't forget F5
oh look a double post. whoops.
I guess I'll just delete my first post.
NOPE
And what about the moderately priced G3 SSDs announced by Sandisk on January 9, 2009? They still don't exist and there isn't an ounce of proof they'll ever exist at the prices promised in front of all the media people.