Asus working on Sata Express while Intel takes their sweet time....

[Zaxx]

As with USB 3, looks like we'll see the first solutions from mobo makers. Intel has said there will not be native support for sata express with the 9 series chipset.

Full story at TweakTown.

[AliG]

I suppose that's nice, but I don't really see what it has to do with Intel? This is a connection designed for internal drives, and likely will only make a difference with the top end SSDs; USB 3.0 is a peripheral connection that works with many different types of devices.

More performance is always nice, but I'm more interested in seeing lower latency than higher bandwidth. I can't think of any time that I actually was actually held back by SATA 6gbps from any real life application

[lowfat]

Dissapointing. How is that notebooks m.2 drives are significantly faster?

[cx-ray]

I'd prefer a dedicated edge connector on the mobo for SSD. To me the SATA Express cable looks clunky and awkward.

[Zaxx]

Intel will not be including native sata express on the upcoming 9 series chipset....that's what Intel has to do with it.

[Vassili]

A interface limitation is always bad, please remove it as fast as possible so that manufactures can innovate on things that do change real life applications.

[lutjens]

Consider the likely fact that the 9 series chipset was finalized long ago and has been ready for release for quite some time explains why it hasn't been included. I imagine most of the CPU/chipset products Intel plans to release in the next two years are finalized and are mostly ready to go, requiring only some polishing/perfecting/errata resolution on the later ones in the pipeline. I'll bet right now Intel is working on a platform that'll be released in the distant future (probably Skylake in 2016ish) and therefore that's when I'd expect to see new technologies like SATA Express on an Intel chipset. Intel has a great advantage in being so far ahead that they can release new products at their leisure that are highly refined and polished, but the consequence of this is that new evolving technologies come late to Intel chipsets. Not really a significant consequence to Intel (as they have no competition in the x86 world), but more so to us and motherboard makers, who have to rely on third parties in the interim to fill the gap.

[geo]

i was thinking sata express was going msata/ngff like connector on/under the mobo. the cable is lame idea :/ imo. Intel not being ahead on technology... *surpise*
Asus and samsung FTW

[zalbard]

i was thinking sata express was going msata/ngff like connector on/under the mobo. the cable is lame idea :/ imo

I agree, these cables will make cable management a nightmare.
I guess I might just buy a real PCI-E SSD once native ones start showing up.
Btw, I already like the 4K improvements.

[[XC] Lead Head]

Seesh people can't read. The final cable isn't going to be 3 individual cables like that. It'll be one, single cable.

[zalbard]

Seesh people can't read. The final cable isn't going to be 3 individual cables like that. It'll be one, single cable.

No, it will be essentially three of these cables packaged together. Which still makes a cable larger than current SATA.

Eventually we plan to see more refined cables with bundled in a single sleeve.

Also, note "eventually" and "plan".

[DeathReborn]

I'd rather see PCI Express cables used internally and controller chips being on the Drives, this whole thing is too half baked so far to get me excited. It would also probably be easier to implement that SATA Express too.

[[XC] Lead Head]

No, it will be essentially three of these cables packaged together. Which still makes a cable larger than current SATA.

What do you mean "No"? It's going to be finalized as one single cable. Yes, it'll be slightly larger than the current SATA cables, but it's not just going to be those three cables in a sleeve like a power supply cable.

Also, note "eventually" and "plan".

This standard isn't even fully finalized yet. There are no commercial manufacturers of cables, there are no motherboards for it, and there are no drives. This is purely a proof-of-concept test more than anything.

[Zaxx]

On a more positive note, Intel will be supporting M.2 (NGFF) on the 9 series chipset. From what I've seen from the early m.2 reviews, these little buggers can hold their own and ofc in R0, they fly. Once SandForce finishes the firmware for the 14-core SF-3700 controller(s) they will be dominating the market once again (1.8GB/s r/w)...and this time they won't choke down on incompressible data. Can't wait to see a pair in R0. I can do without SEx with m.2 pcie support. Btw SEx meaning sata express...could never do without sex...lol

[Highendtoys]

In short, all it's doing is passing along PCIe signals. M.2 and M.3 (AKA NGFF, I still like NGFF better for a name) are PCIe and so is SATA Express.

This hold is really has to do with the PCH. Intel should have a PCIe 3.0 PCH but is it going to come on X97 or X99. That's the where the delay comes in. It's not difficult to route PCIe, ASRock just put M.2 on an AMD board that I have coming. Starting out we'll have consumer drives with 2 lanes and enterprise drives with 4 lanes. They will eventually get a boost to PCIe 3.0 and that will double the bandwidth so consumer will have 1GB/s moving to 2GB/s and enterprise will have 2GB/s and move to 4GB/s. I expect some companies to put out consumer SSDs with SandForce's SF3700 since there is a significant difference this time between the consumer (1GB/s) and enterprise (2GB/s).

Also, if you check out the way the SF3700 was designed, it's modular front end will make it easy for LSI to move to PCIe 3.0. I'm excited!!!!

[Highendtoys]

Also, M.2 to PCIe 2x adapters will get really cheap, maybe 30 Dollars. Plextor will have M6 at CES in M.2 form factor and I know they are in production, at least in limited quantities. The cool thing about that is we break past the SATA III limits but keep TRIM. A new update for every Plextor SSD is coming as well and its got some special sauce but I can't really talk about that right now.

The best thing is, with the flash cheap right now the next gen SSDs will be about what we are paying right now. So more than SATA III speed without performance killing RAID and with TRIM to keep the drive fast over a long period of time. That pretty much sums it up.

[Vicey]

My Apple 15" rMBP has Sata Express. 1TB SSD getting 1GB/s writes 900MB/s reads. Really impressive sequential numbers and the IOPS are pretty good too.

I'm looking forward to having the same interface in my PC. It would seem to me that they want to take SATA to a fully PCIe based interconnect similar to Thunderbolt but purely for storage devices. In their vision that would include cabled drives like the same 2.5" and 3.5" drives we have now but also sticks on the motherboard like how Apple has done it with the iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro.

Interesting times ahead.

[geo]

My Apple 15" rMBP has Sata Express. 1TB SSD getting 1GB/s writes 900MB/s reads. Really impressive sequential numbers and the IOPS are pretty good too.

I'm looking forward to having the same interface in my PC. It would seem to me that they want to take SATA to a fully PCIe based interconnect similar to Thunderbolt but purely for storage devices. In their vision that would include cabled drives like the same 2.5" and 3.5" drives we have now but also sticks on the motherboard like how Apple has done it with the iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro.

Interesting times ahead.

agreed. pcie ssds with same performance are available in Sony Z pro and a few other ultrabooks as well.while currently out ngff ssd'd don't come close to macbook ssd performance now. its just a matter of time they match current pcie ssds.

in this regard, Asus ROG series having ngff slot on the board is move in the right direction and hopefully, motherboard makers will implement the ngff/m.2/m.3 in their boards as well bringing pcie ssds mainstream.

[lutjens]

M.2 SSDs look really promising....except that the damn things are as rare as hen's teeth. The Samsung XP941 is perpetually out of stock at every place I've looked, as are the very promising Adata AXNP280E, which was showcased in June, but still has the material quality of a shadow...no one even has a SKU on the damn thing, let alone stock. It seems that all M.2 production is going to....you guessed it....the big OEMs. Maybe by the end of 2014, we'll be able to buy them as well... The XP941, while a decent drive, doesn't seem to be Samsung's best offering, as it uses 4 NAND packages for 512GB, where the 840 EVO 1TB mSATA uses 4 packages for 1 TB. Given the fact that M.2 is vaporware at this point, I'll probably end up going with the Asrock Z87E-ITX for my NCASE M1 build (as it used mSATA), rather than the Asus Maximus VI Impact that I'd prefer to use (which uses M.2/NGFF).

On a more positive note, the 840 EVO 1TB mSATA has been announced and most places already have it SKUed up...we'll see if stock materializes before spring. I guess the large OEMs are less interested in mSATA drives, than they are in M.2/NGFF drives, so we actually may be able to buy one before they become obsolete...

[Zaxx]

Also, M.2 to PCIe 2x adapters will get really cheap, maybe 30 Dollars.

With m.2 cards being so small, I expect to see a lot of these adapters sporting raid controllers as well...I've got a 3.0 4x slot open and just begging to be abused.