Mini pcie SSD in WLAN or WWAN slot

I have seen alot of SSD comments and instructions for netbooks like the EEE pc which have SSD mini pci express slots.

Alot of us have WLAN or WWAN mini pci express slots. The connector has a different height to it, it is shorter then SSD mpcie slots. This may be due to the SSD's having IC's on both sides and many wifi cards have them on the top.


Has anyone had any luck installing SSD's or SD card adapters into mini pcie slots which are WLAN or WWAN? Are there any single sided SSD cards out there? If my WLAN/WWAN slot is mini pci express how can I tell if I have all the connections to support a SSD card if I can even get one to fit.

-side note I have seen atsc htdv tuners for mpcie which also lead me to the same question, has anyone fit them in lower profile mini pci express slots?

Thanks

 

I also have been searching everywhere to find out if SSD cards can be put in wireless mini pciexpress slots.

I found this page:
http://mydellmini.com/forum/ssd-wlan-mini-pci-e-slot-differences-t218.html

They explain the same thing, the difference between the slots and how it won't fit. But if the slot is pcie it should be a standard and be able to accept SSD's if they fit right.

Has no one tried to get an mpcie SSD in a WLAN pci express slot yet?

 

bump! I'm curious about this too!

 

intel turbo memory uses the same slot... :\

 

well in my 2710p and 2730p the asus eee pcie-ssd don't fit. it's twice as long as the cards in there. but if it fits, it may work. or not, some have a hardware-whitelist and only accept those cards.

 

I'm looking for a mini-PCIe SSD that has a SATA/PATA controller onboard, and so would have a proper mini-PCIe interface, rather than the dodgey SATA enabled one in some netbooks. In fact, I wonder why someone wouldn't make these, since it would still work in the netbooks proprietry slot and normal slots too.

I'm hoping someone can confirm or deny if This prodct from OCZ should work in a normal mini-PCIe slot.

The page says "Internal SATA Control", which I'm hoping means it has the SATA controller onboard. The part numbers are
16GB - OCZSSDMPES-16G
32GB - OCZSSDMPES-32G
64GB - OCZSSDMPES-64G

If this is not the case, the other thing I'm thinking about is using an expresscard SATA and somehow wiring it up to the spare mini-PCIe slot I have (well, pads anyway). Then running an SSD through that, but obviously the all in one mini-PCIe would be far better, it it exists.

 

I would like to know this too. Newegg has lots of mini-pci-e ssd cards and I have a spare pci-e slot.

 

The netbook mini-pcie ssd cards will generally NOT work in conventional laptops. The makers of the netbooks and ssds have gone with a pcie form factor, but the pinouts are different.

This is why, when you go to places like www.mydigitaldiscount.com and read up a bit, the sellers caution people that these products are only for specific netbooks, not laptops.

 

It is a bit of a long shot, and would require some fairly serious modding, but you could potentially wire up one of these to a mini-PCIe card slot. It is an expresscard SSD, which means some modding, but this is the first of these SSD's that I have seen that has a built-in IDE controller and uses the full mini-PCIe bus, not just the USB2 component of it.

PCIe and expresscard are just different connectors to the same bus, unlike PCMCIA which needs a bridge chip. I had a very quick glance at some pinouts and it looked like there are only about 12 wires needed.

If you have a spare mini-PCIe slot you could get a dead wifi card and cut off the traces and wire one of these up to the pads. In my 8710w I have spare pads on the mobo for an extra mini-PCIe slot next to the Wifi card slot. You may need to ditch the expresscard SSD case to get clearance, but if it is bootable like the manufacturer claims, it could be the only solution currently available to those of us with crippled optical bay interfaces, see here.

 

Those mini-pciE SSDs would be great if the mini pciE in notebooks was SATA capable. mini-pciE used netbooks is proprietory as shown by ASUS's flash_con pinout, combining SATA, PATA and USB pins. Only semblance to the notebook pcie slot is they share the same connector. Saying that, Intel Turbo Memory presents a mystery. Though I read somewhere it's some proprietory PATA interface. If it was SATA then it might be possible as SATA can run with only 4 wires.

It is still be possible to add the SATA netbook pci-e in a more complicated manner. Consider ICH8M has 3 sata ports. ICH9/10M has 4 sata ports. Is there any empty sockets on the systemboard that might be a SATA port you could tap off? If not, could try to wire up the SATA pins from flash_con directly to the ICHxM 4 SATA I/O ports plus 3.3V and GND. Consider discussion in the following threads to help you along with the latter:

ICH8M/SATA IO-pins/PCI-E SSD
Altering SATA port characteristics (T61p thread)

If your aim is a SSD+HDD system, the easy and inexpensive way is to use an optical bay caddy (see signature) to do it. Can still hotswap in your optical drive when required.

 

I'm picking you didn't actually read my post nando, and quickly reached for the CTRL+C then CTRL+V keys instead.

My post is about an expresscard SSD that has an ONBOARD IDE CONTROLLER. I think we are all familiar wiht the netbook "mini-PCIe" cards that aren't actual PCIe by now.

 

what exactly is a ssd and what is it for?

 

SSD = solid state drive, used like a hard disk drive.
But it does not have a disk in it. It's more like a usb flash drive but with better performence than a HDD.

just look it up on google.