Where are the Desktop PCIe SSDs?

[MrMike]

Hey data storage fans,

I bought an Intel 160GB G2 a couple months after release, and it's been running strong since. I was looking to upgrade mainly for capacity reasons, and then I thought about how my Macbook Air has a PCIe SSD.

I started looking around for something similar for the desktop, and all I found were the extremely expensive enterprise grade models and mediocre attempts such as the ASUS RAIDR and OCZ REVO. The best I could find was the OWC model which appeared to slap two of the laptop PCIe SSDs onto one card. This is still a mish-mash, not a native PCIe SSD.

I'm basically looking for a Samsung XP941, but adapted to a desktop PCIe slot. Given what these SSDs look like, I would expect it to be low profile and PCI-E x4.

Am I not looking in the right place, does what I want not exist, or is what I want impossible due to a technology limitation I'm unaware of?

 

[Brahmzy]

It's certainly possible to make consumer-grade PCIe flash, but I'm not sure the demand is there. It is in the Enterprise, absolutely, but mainstream affordable PCIe flash, might not sell well at this point.

 

[BBA]

Any possibility of a PCIE-2X to M.2 interface adaptor?

 

[westrock2000]

Bootability is probably a concern with PCIe. Just another "thing" to add to the requirements.

Also I have noticed on my server, that when you start enabling several hard drive controller you get to a point where the motherboard just won't load any more devices. I had to disable one of the expansion SATA controllers on my mobo in order to get the Dell RAID controller to show up. Otherwise mobo gave an error about exceeded memory allocation (for loading BIOS).

Also, it's just a weird situation. Most mobo's have 6-8 SATA connectors. That's plenty of connectors for most people, and those needing more probably have a RAID or HBA dedicated board.

You also reach a point where there isn't much *consumer* real word difference between 500MB/s and 1000MB/s.

And in cases of small form factors becoming popular, a 2.5" drive is much easier to install.

I personally, don't see much of a demand for this product in the consumer market.

 

[Unknown-One]

You also have to consider that the trend in desktops is towards MicroATX, which has 4 expansion slots rather than 7.

With slots at a premium, using SATA drives makes more sense.

 

[MrMike]

I understand what people mean with regards to demand, but since when does that logic apply to products targeted at the enthusiast market? There are many enthusiast only products like any video card that's even mid-range. Even a GTX 760 has a very tiny target market, let alone a Titan.

This would be a best-of-the-best product, and from what everyone's saying, it's limited to portables.

I want the [H]ardest SSD, and it looks like I may be conceding to capacity and getting a 750-1TB Evo unless hints or rumors of something pops up in the next few months.

Any possibility of a PCIE-2X to M.2 interface adaptor?

This would certainly be welcome.

 

[Unknown-One]

This would be a best-of-the-best product

Best-of-the-best? That already exists, it's called a Fusion ioDrive. The workstation version is called the ioFX, and can be found here: http://www.fusionio.com/products/iofx/

1.65 TB version is $5500, the 420 GB version is a much more reasonable $1200.

Anything designed for desktops / enthusiasts would be paired down. That's when you start getting into things like the OCZ RevoDrive 3...

I want the [H]ardest SSD

That would be the ioDrive Octal... how does a 10 TB PCIe SSD sound? http://www.fusionio.com/products/iodrive-octal/

The 10.24 TB version goes for $125,000. A smaller 5.12TB version can be had for $100,000

Note: For less than $10,000 you could purchase 20 Samsung 840 Pro 512GB drives and a nice RAID controller, giving you the same 10.24 TB of capacity for less than 1/10th the price.

 

[Brahmzy]

I have some FusionIO running in a few servers - crazy fast stuff.

Crazy expensive.

But very inexpensive if it is used in the workloads it was designed for, compared to trying to match spinning spindle count / IOPS.

They work great as cache too.

 

[Unknown-One]

Crazy expensive.

Well, with the GeForce Titan was brought up as a comparable... I don't think "expensive" is a huge concern here

 

[MrMike]

Best-of-the-best? That already exists, it's called a Fusion ioDrive. The workstation version is called the ioFX, and can be found here: http://www.fusionio.com/products/iofx/

1.65 TB version is $5500, the 420 GB version is a much more reasonable $1200.

Anything designed for desktops / enthusiasts would be paired down. That's when you start getting into things like the OCZ RevoDrive 3...

While likely still expensive compared to a M.2 PCIe in an adapter (assuming one even existed), the 420GB version is interesting and on the level of what I was referring to. It does appear to be the Titan of SSDs.

I don't know how I didn't find or know about Fusion ahead of time. I probably read about them years ago and then forgot. Reading some reviews, it does look like even the 420GB version is on a totally different level from anything else, more like a lower capacity Intel 910.

The other consumer SSDs like the owc, revodrive, and asus raidr are merely going to be along the same lines of performance as the tiny PCIe SSD I'm referring to in the OP, yet they have to RAID0 to get there which suggests to me they're using inferior flash.

It seems like if Samsung made a product in this category or even stuck their XP941 on a PCIe x4 slot it'd just stomp everything else in the consumer market.

The 420GB Fusion is much closer to what I was looking for, so I'm going to have to weigh this and a 1TB Evo unless another PCIe alternative is released soon.

 

[DPI]

You should definitely write a letter to these companies and explain how you feel it makes financial sense for them manufacture drives that only fit in a limited form factor (PCI slot) instead of a form factor that fits everything (2.5") including laptops.

Seriously this really isn't a hardthink concept, why 'prosumer' PCI SSD's don't really exist, they'd be niche at best

 

[Unknown-One]

There's also the option of using a card like this or this and pairing it with the mSATA SSD of your choice. This 512GB Samsung PM841, for example. That combo would net you a 512GB PCIe SSD with 520 MB/s transfer rates for $500 (you're effectively building a PCIe version of the Samsung 840 Pro, with these components)

You can ignore the spare SATA 3 port on that first card, it's there if you want to plug in an additional hard disk (the card includes SSD caching software). Both cards will work equally well as a stand-alone PCIe SSD once an mSATA SSD is installed on them.

Edit: There are also high-end motherboards like this one or this one that include an mSATA slot right on the board. No need to use up a PCIe slot with one of these, just screw the SSD directly into the motherboard.

Any possibility of a PCIE-2X to M.2 interface adaptor?

Edit 2: The Samsung XP941 should actually be usable in any desktop PCIe slot with a simple mechanical adapter. Something like this one or this one. That first one even has mount-points for M.2 form-factor cards.

There are also plenty of desktop motherboards that include a built-in MiniPCIe slot that could take the Samsung XP941 (again, without using up a normal PCIe slot or an adapter card).

 

[8steve8]

There's also the option of using a card like this or this and pairing it with the mSATA SSD of your choice. This 512GB Samsung PM841, for example. That combo would net you a 512GB PCIe SSD with 520 MB/s transfer rates for $500 (you're effectively building a PCIe version of the Samsung 840 Pro, with these components)

You can ignore the spare SATA 3 port on that first card, it's there if you want to plug in an additional hard disk (the card includes SSD caching software). Both cards will work equally well as a stand-alone PCIe SSD once an mSATA SSD is installed on them.

Edit: There are also high-end motherboards like this one or this one that include an mSATA slot right on the board. No need to use up a PCIe slot with one of these, just screw the SSD directly into the motherboard.


Edit 2: The Samsung XP941 should actually be usable in any desktop PCIe slot with a simple mechanical adapter. Something like this one or this one. That first one even has mount-points for M.2 form-factor cards.

There are also plenty of desktop motherboards that include a built-in MiniPCIe slot that could take the Samsung XP941 (again, without using up a normal PCIe slot or an adapter card).

there is a lot of mis-information here, I'm sure the Unknown-One just had it mixed up for a moment... i didn't want someone to read this and buy a bunch of stuff , so let me correct it.

1. getting a mSATA SSD and a pci-e to mini-pci-e adapter will simply not work... although they will physically connect, the mpci-e slot must have sata routed through the proper pins in order for a msata drive to work properly.

you could get a motherboard with a working msata/mpci-e slot and plug a msata drive into it, but that will not be like a " PCIe version of the samsung 840 pro" , it'll be a SATA version of it... because all msata ssds are using SATA....

2. the XP941 uses an M.2 NGFF interface which is not the same as mPCI-e, and will not plug into any current motherboard (aside from a few high end asus boards which have 1x PCI-e M.2 NGFF)


the point of pcie ssds is to avoid SATA alltogether, if you have sata going on at any point, then you might as well do SATA... so no solution involving mSATA drives is going to be great in terms of performance.

 

[drescherjm]

The problem is the lack of consumer SSD controllers that have a PCIe interface. I suspect the reason for not having any is this will be a low volume item (compared to SATA based controllers) so it will have to be way more expensive.

the point of pcie ssds is to avoid SATA alltogether, if you have sata going on at any point, then you might as well do SATA...

Exactly.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Best-of-the-best? That already exists, it's called a Fusion ioDrive.

I dunno, they're pretty fast (I have two in my home box) but I don't think they're the fastest drives we as humanity can produce. They're only x4 pci express 1.1, which is only 1GB/s. I mean, that's pretty snappy, but the Micron P320H (on x8 pcie 2.0) does 3.2GB/s.

I got my FusionIO drives on eBay. If you watch the right terms, you can get used devices for less than $1/GB. Or at least you could, before I pointed out that you could.