Couldn't agree more. And I'm excited to see the old school Japanese "over-engineering" at play. They partnered with JAE to make the HINGE. This sucker is aerospace worthy.
I'd love for this to go into Apple devices, but I'm not expecting so, since they'd rather retain the insultingly high upgrade prices to boost the margins.
If Apple was to do this they probably would take this change it slightly and say they invented it. But do they not prefer having it soldered onto the main board so you are forced to upgrade the whole system. I am not 100% sure on that since I do not own anything Apple at all.
On their laptops, they went from a custom version of mSATA to a custom version of M.2 to solder the flash directly onto the motherboard and include a diagnostic port for recovering data from a failed system to as above, but with no way to recover data from a failed system.
Unless it's just a more compact or cheaper physical socket I'm not sure what this actually offers vs smaller form factors in the m.2 spec? While current consumer modules are all 22mm wide, 16 and 12mm widths are also in spec, as is a 16mm length. At the smallest end a 12x16mm m.2 sdd would be significantly smaller in area than this SD derived implementation, although I suppose this might win on overall socket/drive volume or z height.
Most of the smaller sizes defined by the M.2 spec are actually soldered-down LGA or BGA modules. The only thing smaller than 22x30 that's still removable is 16x30, which is literally the 22x30 card form factor with 5.5mm sliced off—including some of the pins required for PCIe x4.
Is Toshiba pitching this to PCI-SIG, who controls the M.2 specification? Why not add it to M.2, instead of positioning it as an alternative?
Because...why would system OEMs ever design for a tiny (in market share), brand-new form factor for SSDs? Why would SSD manufacturers re-create their M.2 SSDs? How will customers find these things available at retailers? What's the point of being able to replace your SSD, if manufacturers aren't making them?
Trying this "we're a big company...let us just shoehorn our own form-factor and see how the market responses" seems ridiculous in 2019. Just make it a standard: we don't need less interoperability in this dwindling market
When Toshiba briefed me on this before the show, they wouldn't answer any questions about whether the spec would be open, etc. I'm not sure if they've even decided for sure how to handle ownership of this standard. I don't seeing it having much success in the market unless they make it royalty-free and contribute it to a standards body.
Thank you for following up with them after Toshiba dropped this: Toshiba should know people are very curious and it doesn't reflect well for all this R&D to be stuck in a halfway-open/halfway-proprietary dead man's zone: not for consumers, not for the industry, and unfortunately not for Toshiba, either. They can take a look at Thunderbolt 3 for a live case study.
I agree. We all want this tech to proliferate: standards are the only serious shot to do that, in this industry.
Cheers, Mr. Tallis. Let's hope the next release from Toshiba is their integration into M.2, at least!
So cool! If they fit within the power consumption and thermal limits of mobile platforms, these would maybe offer a nice performance boost for removable storage over SD-based standards.
I was thinking like all the Surface like devices that could spin off with real fast large SSDs. If they build enough and the higest performance CellPhone CPUs get reasonable there will be really tremendous low power hi-out put computing to be done. I would really like a better Amazon Fire device ASAP for shopping as an example with great multi-tasking capability. Oh wait. That is a browser issue with the Fire, sorry.
You ever seen those tiny, flat ribbon cables that are attached to a board by a locking clip? I've broken several of those locking clips in my time. This looks just like one of those.
I'm concerned about how easy this would be to accidentally break. M2 doesn't have that problem.
I think I would be more interested that it tzkes the form of some kind of (nano) SIM card tray, that is externally user accessible : it would allow user to easily access and upgrade the main device storage.
As it is compatible with PCI-express 4, and maybe PCI-e 5 later on, it would even maybe replace micro-SD cards in the future due to much better data write & data read spead...
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tmnvnbl - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I can only approve of this. Minimal space, but still serviceable.Samus - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Couldn't agree more. And I'm excited to see the old school Japanese "over-engineering" at play. They partnered with JAE to make the HINGE. This sucker is aerospace worthy.AdditionalPylons - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I'd love for this to go into Apple devices, but I'm not expecting so, since they'd rather retain the insultingly high upgrade prices to boost the margins.rocky12345 - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
If Apple was to do this they probably would take this change it slightly and say they invented it. But do they not prefer having it soldered onto the main board so you are forced to upgrade the whole system. I am not 100% sure on that since I do not own anything Apple at all.MASSAMKULABOX - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
No red will take this call it the x10, hand paint it red and apply an x10 price uplift for next generation storage and "innovative research"umano - Sunday, August 11, 2019 - link
Or they will sell a 16gb version at 59$ and 64gb at 389$, 128gb 879$ and 1 tb at 8.99e12RadiclDreamer - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Apple still sells spinning disk in "premium priced" imacs. They wont go to SSD without a major uptick in pricing until they absolutely have to.Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
On their laptops, they went from a custom version of mSATA toa custom version of M.2 to
solder the flash directly onto the motherboard and include a diagnostic port for recovering data from a failed system to
as above, but with no way to recover data from a failed system.
DanNeely - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Unless it's just a more compact or cheaper physical socket I'm not sure what this actually offers vs smaller form factors in the m.2 spec? While current consumer modules are all 22mm wide, 16 and 12mm widths are also in spec, as is a 16mm length. At the smallest end a 12x16mm m.2 sdd would be significantly smaller in area than this SD derived implementation, although I suppose this might win on overall socket/drive volume or z height.https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/209...
Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Most of the smaller sizes defined by the M.2 spec are actually soldered-down LGA or BGA modules. The only thing smaller than 22x30 that's still removable is 16x30, which is literally the 22x30 card form factor with 5.5mm sliced off—including some of the pins required for PCIe x4.ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Is Toshiba pitching this to PCI-SIG, who controls the M.2 specification? Why not add it to M.2, instead of positioning it as an alternative?Because...why would system OEMs ever design for a tiny (in market share), brand-new form factor for SSDs? Why would SSD manufacturers re-create their M.2 SSDs? How will customers find these things available at retailers? What's the point of being able to replace your SSD, if manufacturers aren't making them?
Trying this "we're a big company...let us just shoehorn our own form-factor and see how the market responses" seems ridiculous in 2019. Just make it a standard: we don't need less interoperability in this dwindling market
ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
*respondsBilly Tallis - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
When Toshiba briefed me on this before the show, they wouldn't answer any questions about whether the spec would be open, etc. I'm not sure if they've even decided for sure how to handle ownership of this standard. I don't seeing it having much success in the market unless they make it royalty-free and contribute it to a standards body.ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Eghad: Toshiba, be smart.Thank you for following up with them after Toshiba dropped this: Toshiba should know people are very curious and it doesn't reflect well for all this R&D to be stuck in a halfway-open/halfway-proprietary dead man's zone: not for consumers, not for the industry, and unfortunately not for Toshiba, either. They can take a look at Thunderbolt 3 for a live case study.
I agree. We all want this tech to proliferate: standards are the only serious shot to do that, in this industry.
Cheers, Mr. Tallis. Let's hope the next release from Toshiba is their integration into M.2, at least!
sorten - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
"I'm not sure what this actually offers vs smaller form factors in the m.2 spec?"This post is only 3 paragraphs.
Mobile-Dom - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I actually kinda love htisPeachNCream - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
So cool! If they fit within the power consumption and thermal limits of mobile platforms, these would maybe offer a nice performance boost for removable storage over SD-based standards.MojArch - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
This might actually happen cause big excuse for manufacturers was that micro SD is slow and therfore no need to implement it!PProchnow - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I like it but I cannot FB like it.I miss the "HOW FAST" part.
PProchnow - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I was thinking like all the Surface like devices that could spin off with real fast large SSDs. If they build enough and the higest performance CellPhone CPUs get reasonable there will be really tremendous low power hi-out put computing to be done. I would really like a better Amazon Fire device ASAP for shopping as an example with great multi-tasking capability. Oh wait. That is a browser issue with the Fire, sorry.Dwedit - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
You ever seen those tiny, flat ribbon cables that are attached to a board by a locking clip? I've broken several of those locking clips in my time. This looks just like one of those.I'm concerned about how easy this would be to accidentally break. M2 doesn't have that problem.
hubick - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
What about CFExpress? How does this compare? Why not one or the other?LordConrad - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Other than removabilty, how does this compare to SDexpress?valinor89 - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
This looks, phisically, like the way we put sim cards under the battery of mobile phones of yore. Not exactly an innovative connector design...Siliconathlete - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Not to be against this but too many interfaces will ruin this space..Diogene7 - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
I think I would be more interested that it tzkes the form of some kind of (nano) SIM card tray, that is externally user accessible : it would allow user to easily access and upgrade the main device storage.As it is compatible with PCI-express 4, and maybe PCI-e 5 later on, it would even maybe replace micro-SD cards in the future due to much better data write & data read spead...
Wereweeb - Saturday, February 6, 2021 - link
Mr. Tallis, I'm not sure if you are aware, but this website appears to have wholesale copied your post and reposted as if it were theirs:https://www.minitool.com/news/xfmexpress-003.html