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    Let's talk NGFF (M.2)

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by oled, Jun 17, 2013.

  1. oled

    oled Notebook Evangelist

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    Apparently ratified by the PCI SIG consortium M.2 (NGFF) is reported to set a new standard interface for expansion cards.
    In contrast to the Mini Card M.2 supports additional bus systems but most remarkably multi lane PCIe x2/x4 and SATA x2. The latter two being especially useful for SSD speeds:

    View attachment 97667

    However for whatever type of card (WiFi, WWAN, SSD...) AND whether or not it's single/double sided it appears to use a different Socket:

    Socket 1: Wi-Fi centric slot (in three different types)
    Socket 2: WWAN / SSD / Other (in three different types)
    Socket 3: SSD with x4 PCI Express interface

    ngff2.jpg

    ngff3.jpg

    A Heaven for OEMs to integrate modules seamlessly or the end of all user interchangability / upgradability?
     
    oled, Jun 17, 2013
    #1
  2. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    no it only allows the death of the HDD in smaller form factors., its a standard damn it, samsung and crucial are already producing, the new SF controller will come for that as well
     
    Karamazovmm, Jun 17, 2013
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  3. oled

    oled Notebook Evangelist

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    With heaps of different "standard" sockets


    And what if I would like to replace my WiFi with WWAN or a second SSD? Not possible anymore....
     
    oled, Jun 17, 2013
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  4. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    sockets are different in size only, connectors are the same across the board, its basically trying to fit a 12.5mm HDD ina 7mm HDD bay, it wont work

    you actually rarely could change the mpcie to msata, not all of them were electrically equal or other incompatibilities. wwan is another matter, not that anyone cares about that
     
    Karamazovmm, Jun 17, 2013
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  5. Maikky

    Maikky Notebook Consultant

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    Can someone explain this to me like I'm 5 ?

    I ordered a haswell 15 touchsmart envy a while back but it hasn't shipped, I think I can still cancel it .

    Should I wait for these updates as well or are they going to take to long / worth it to wait for ? Or are these updates already out and may be in the envy ?
     
    Maikky, Jun 17, 2013
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  6. oled

    oled Notebook Evangelist

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    What the ... are you talking about HDD? I think you are mixing things up.

    If you believe those (training) documents WiFi, WWAN & SSD use different sockets altogether, the latter using different sizes and sockets depending on PCIe x2 or PCIe x4 support. And we haven't even talked about whether single sided or not...

    Standard I guess....
     
    oled, Jun 17, 2013
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  7. djembe

    djembe drum while you work

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    The M.2 socket allows for faster SSDs in a smaller form factor. There will be more systems with them as time goes on. If you need a system now, I would just get one and not worry about it.
     
    djembe, Jun 17, 2013
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  8. Maikky

    Maikky Notebook Consultant

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    I don't really need a system now but I was hoping that the Envy I order may come with it (I got about 250$ off of the MSRP), seeing as the Y410p comes with the new NGFF ssd slots .
     
    Maikky, Jun 17, 2013
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  9. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    exactly because of that the HDD analogy works, you wont fit a double sided on that extremely slim connector, nor do I think it will actually be usable for SSDs...
     
    Karamazovmm, Jun 17, 2013
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  10. oled

    oled Notebook Evangelist

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    I'm gonna eat my cake now.
     
    oled, Jun 17, 2013
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  11. Cloudfire

    Cloudfire (Really odd person)

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    Cloudfire, Jun 20, 2013
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  12. baii

    baii Sone

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    What matters is how much $/GB. I have a feeling it would be like when msata just came out.
     
    baii, Jun 20, 2013
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  13. Maikky

    Maikky Notebook Consultant

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    So I'm reading this and having no idea how computers works, he said we can use the PCIe slots that are already on our MBs for something ?

    Does that mean most current and before gen laptops will have access to these or are the future mobos going to have them ?
     
    Maikky, Jun 20, 2013
    #13
  14. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    its simple what did you expect from a past generation controller? the m500 controller doesnt fare much better, noticeable improve in reads, and writes stay limited to 450mb/s. the samsung is XP841 is the one to get so far
     
    Karamazovmm, Jun 21, 2013
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  15. octiceps

    octiceps Nimrod

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    We don't need faster sequential performance, we need faster 4K random performance. That's what matters in real-world usage outside of benchmarks. M.2 gives us a lot of the former but the latter stays the same until we make advancements in the NAND flash and controller complexity.
     
    octiceps, Jun 22, 2013
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  16. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    I still dont understand what you guys were expecting from the SF 2281 controller, the performance wasnt bottlenecked by the interface
     
    Karamazovmm, Jun 22, 2013
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  17. oled

    oled Notebook Evangelist

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    Looks like SATA Express over PCIe to be the last SATA generation: Here comes NVMe
     
    oled, Sep 8, 2013
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  18. Jobine

    Jobine Notebook Prophet

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    *has an M.2 drive in his laptop*

    Dis gon be gud. I can do benchmarks if you guys want.
     
    Jobine, Sep 8, 2013
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  19. oled

    oled Notebook Evangelist

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    oled, Dec 19, 2013
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