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    SATA roadmap for laptop drives

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by galapogos, Nov 12, 2015.

  1. galapogos

    galapogos Newbie

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    Hi,
    I'm trying to get a sense of the current and future landscape for laptop SATA drives. AFAIK, currently the standard is 2.5" SATA, along with mSATA and sometimes M.2 drives. It also used to be 1.8" microSATA, but that standard has largely died out.
    Does anyone have figures on the different percentages of these standards among various PC laptops (excluding Macs)? Will M.2 drives replace mSATA in the near future like mSATA replaced microSATA?
    Thanks!
     
    galapogos, Nov 12, 2015
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  2. djembe

    djembe drum while you work

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    You're actually talking about 2 different things: transfer spec & form factor. SATA is a transfer spec, which is currently in its 3rd revision and is in process of being replaced by faster PCI Express-based transfer specifications (for instance, NVMe).

    As the transfer specifications are changing, some form factors are changing as well. You are correct that the mSATA form factor is in process of being replaced by the m.2 form factor. The existing 2.5" form factor will remain, although with a modified connector and transfer spec, and renamed as the u.2 form factor.
     
    djembe, Nov 23, 2015
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  3. galapogos

    galapogos Newbie

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    Thanks. I'm working on a SATA device that will talk to a small form factor SATA storage device such as mSATA/M.2 SSDs. Given that M.2 does both SATA and PCIe busses, I'm also concerned that it will gradually gravitate towards the faster PCIe bus. My application is SATA only, so I'm also trying to avoid running into a situation where there are no M.2 devices that speak SATA anymore in 5-10 years. What are the chances of this?
     
    galapogos, Nov 24, 2015
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  4. djembe

    djembe drum while you work

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    The chances that SATA will be phased out for NVMe or other PCI Express-based standards in M.2 drives in the next 5-10 years are very good - in fact almost a certainty. So if you have a device that only works with SATA in smaller form factors, your device will probably be obsolete within 2-3 years.

    In my opinion, any storage technology that you want to last 10 years is a pipe dream. SATA itself is only 12 years old, and it's about to get replaced. And storage drives based on new technology that have different strengths and weaknesses are never more than a few years away.
     
    djembe, Nov 26, 2015
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