Why are they designing these to be limited to M.2-2230 drives. Are they in cahoots with SSD makers so they can sell smaller drives, which is cheaper to produce, for double the price?!?
@TheinsanegamerN - I think @Byte's comment is a fair point to ask, and worth an honest discussion. Making a hyperbolic comment like yours does nothing to add anything meaningful to the discussion. I have a PC gaming handheld that has a smaller footprint and similar hardware as the Ally, and it has a full size 2280 drive in it. So that basically negates your comment.
That being said, the Ally is thinner, and Asus also made it quite repairable, so I'm sure those factors, as well as others, were considered by Asus' engineers, and I'm sure they have a very valid reason for using a 2230 size drive. But since other similar devices use 2280 SSDs, it's worth having a good-faith discussion about it.
because there's no room? installing a 2280 into the ROG Ally will make it sit over part of the RAM, and very likely cause thermal issues to both SSD and RAM.
Like, literally, where would a 2280 SSD fit? over the heatsink? over the RAM? Those are not good spots when SSDs prefer lower temps than either of those two.
to be honest 42mm long option would fit as is if it was just touching ram with pcb, not chips, so temps would not be that bad, and it would be already 2TB drive as current max, not 1TB.
I wonder how hard it would be to make kinda slightly rotated mount, as it seems like 15'' to 45'' clockwise would give them enough space for 2280 without any conflicts.
I thought of that as well, and I think the Asus engineers would have thought of it too. I am guessing they didn't do that, because it would sit over the hottest part of the heatsink.
ASUS pays for the SSD it comes with new, so I'm sure they'd use the cheapest commodity type if it looked practical for them.
Also kind of fun that, although it's a big premium over current "normal" SSD prices, tiny m.2's are around the 10c/GB range that a lot of us considered fine/good not long ago.
One of the key requests from gamers who were asked was that the ROG Ally be light weight.
Subsequently, any ability to save on weight was utilized, to the point where the higher end model doesn't even have the thermal headroom to utilize the power of it's APU due to the lack of thermal headroom.
Or at least so I have read regarding the ROG Ally's history and performance.
So next time, go to the gym and tell the next company to please make their product spacious and well cooled.
I guess you could also ask why isn't there a 2290 that is twice as long as 2280 and gets 8TB? 2230 is clearly the future, because you can fit small things everywhere but you can only fit big things in big form factors.
Well, twice as long as a 2280 would be a 22160. 22110 exists already, you know. It wasnt really used because there was not much benefit to such a large form factor, 2280 was able to fit 8TB just fine, the controllers were the limitation.
That will continue to be the case since you need room for the traces if you want to maintain full speed on these drives.
AFAIK 22110 has only been used to add a capacitor bank to 2280 enterprise drives so they could empty their write buffers in a power off situation. My guess is that it's mostly died because those customers are now using other form factors more suitable to building servers full of SSDs.
Games are a bit chunky for the 512GB default storage but I thought this thing had an SD slot. Based on Steam Deck reviews, it seemed like SD performed adequately for the sorts of games handheld systems like this were capable of playing at mid/high settings. The modding effort seems interesting, but it looks like a kludgy, inelegant solution doomed to kill your storage in short order.
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Byte - Friday, June 30, 2023 - link
Why are they designing these to be limited to M.2-2230 drives. Are they in cahoots with SSD makers so they can sell smaller drives, which is cheaper to produce, for double the price?!?TheinsanegamerN - Friday, June 30, 2023 - link
Because its a small device?*herp derp my tiny handheld should have room for a server of HDDs*
FlyBri - Wednesday, July 5, 2023 - link
@TheinsanegamerN - I think @Byte's comment is a fair point to ask, and worth an honest discussion. Making a hyperbolic comment like yours does nothing to add anything meaningful to the discussion. I have a PC gaming handheld that has a smaller footprint and similar hardware as the Ally, and it has a full size 2280 drive in it. So that basically negates your comment.That being said, the Ally is thinner, and Asus also made it quite repairable, so I'm sure those factors, as well as others, were considered by Asus' engineers, and I'm sure they have a very valid reason for using a 2230 size drive. But since other similar devices use 2280 SSDs, it's worth having a good-faith discussion about it.
meacupla - Friday, June 30, 2023 - link
because there's no room?installing a 2280 into the ROG Ally will make it sit over part of the RAM, and very likely cause thermal issues to both SSD and RAM.
Like, literally, where would a 2280 SSD fit? over the heatsink? over the RAM? Those are not good spots when SSDs prefer lower temps than either of those two.
deil - Monday, July 3, 2023 - link
to be honest 42mm long option would fit as is if it was just touching ram with pcb, not chips, so temps would not be that bad, and it would be already 2TB drive as current max, not 1TB.I wonder how hard it would be to make kinda slightly rotated mount, as it seems like 15'' to 45'' clockwise would give them enough space for 2280 without any conflicts.
meacupla - Monday, July 3, 2023 - link
I thought of that as well, and I think the Asus engineers would have thought of it too. I am guessing they didn't do that, because it would sit over the hottest part of the heatsink.twotwotwo - Friday, June 30, 2023 - link
ASUS pays for the SSD it comes with new, so I'm sure they'd use the cheapest commodity type if it looked practical for them.Also kind of fun that, although it's a big premium over current "normal" SSD prices, tiny m.2's are around the 10c/GB range that a lot of us considered fine/good not long ago.
ballsystemlord - Saturday, July 1, 2023 - link
One of the key requests from gamers who were asked was that the ROG Ally be light weight.Subsequently, any ability to save on weight was utilized, to the point where the higher end model doesn't even have the thermal headroom to utilize the power of it's APU due to the lack of thermal headroom.
Or at least so I have read regarding the ROG Ally's history and performance.
So next time, go to the gym and tell the next company to please make their product spacious and well cooled.
meacupla - Sunday, July 2, 2023 - link
Yeah, and for that category, there is the GPD Win Max 2bansheexyz - Monday, July 3, 2023 - link
I guess you could also ask why isn't there a 2290 that is twice as long as 2280 and gets 8TB? 2230 is clearly the future, because you can fit small things everywhere but you can only fit big things in big form factors.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, July 3, 2023 - link
Well, twice as long as a 2280 would be a 22160. 22110 exists already, you know. It wasnt really used because there was not much benefit to such a large form factor, 2280 was able to fit 8TB just fine, the controllers were the limitation.That will continue to be the case since you need room for the traces if you want to maintain full speed on these drives.
DanNeely - Wednesday, July 5, 2023 - link
AFAIK 22110 has only been used to add a capacitor bank to 2280 enterprise drives so they could empty their write buffers in a power off situation. My guess is that it's mostly died because those customers are now using other form factors more suitable to building servers full of SSDs.davidedney123 - Monday, July 3, 2023 - link
Yeah, I want to fit in my full height 5.25" ST-506, it's a conspiracy I tell you.JTWrenn - Monday, July 3, 2023 - link
Power, heat, and space. All are important and the smaller drives have better power usage, lower heat, and are smaller.Drkrieger01 - Friday, June 30, 2023 - link
It sure would be nice if they at least bumped it to 2242 size. Maybe we'd have more cost effective 1-2 TB options.PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 4, 2023 - link
Games are a bit chunky for the 512GB default storage but I thought this thing had an SD slot. Based on Steam Deck reviews, it seemed like SD performed adequately for the sorts of games handheld systems like this were capable of playing at mid/high settings. The modding effort seems interesting, but it looks like a kludgy, inelegant solution doomed to kill your storage in short order.