C'mon SSD makers, where is the flood of CONSUMER PCIE SSD's, and I am talking native ones, none of this PCIe to SATA RAID crap that we have had for ages.
Are the two new lines here not native? Or not consumer class? Specs wise they seem to be in line with both the Samsung SM951 & Intel 750, only available in even higher capacities... 800/960GB on M.2 probably has some exited since the Samsung tops out at half a gig.
Outside of enthusiasts, demand is probably not very high still, otherwise Samsung would be all over it. I'm curious whether U.2 will take over or coexist with M.2 on the desktop, seems it's pretty easy to go from the latter to the former, even if the adapter looks awkward.
These appear to be enterprize oriented, especially because of the endurance ratings. I would guess these will be on the order of $0.65/gb for the 0.3 DWPD drives and $1.00/gb or more for the 3 DWPD drives.
That is true ... well I guess we will wait and see. The random write IOPS seems to be pretty much 2009-2010 levels though. I really WANT to love the Intel 750, but the SM951 just seems so elegant, less power, less channels, etc, but still as good or better performance. I am honestly a bit disappointed with the 750 in most workloads .. Although if you were say running a bunch of VM's from one SSD, the 750 would be perfect!
I just bought an SM951 (so tiny, for some reason I pictured them more like the size of regular DIMMs than SO-DIMMs), I'm disappointed I can't do jack with it until Intel decides to start selling 6700K in NA...
I'm not entirely sure if M.2 is the answer for desktops in the long run tho, or if it turns into a mix of M.2 plus those M.2 to U.2 adapters or what... I guess eventually someone will decide to do something else with the space taken by worthless SATA Express ports.
Yeah, I want to be writing more about consumer PCIe stuff, but they keep sending me info about enterprise drives. The controller tech will be finding its way into the consumer market now that most new systems are NVMe-capable, but it's the OEMs that provide sufficient demand, not the retail customers. If you want a thriving ecosystem of M.2 NVMe products for consumers, direct your complaints to Dell, Lenovo, et al.
In the meantime, the enterprise product lines are a lot more diverse so there are a lot more products to write about, especially this week with Flash Memory Summit being the hot venue for showing off products to other businesses. By the end of the month we should be mostly back to the usual routine of more full reviews and fewer announcements and a better balance of consumer vs. enterprise stuff. But this week, I'm barely keeping up with all the announcements, and the timing is all staggered so we haven't had the chance to compile it all in to one big round-up.
yah, Prices man, where be the prices? How much for the 4/3.4TB drive ... that sounds like a good size, I could install whatever I want from my steam library and still have space to buy a new game every now and again...
You jest, but I'm someone will eventually drop a few grand on something like this just for their Steam library, and then realize it doesn't make much of a difference vs a cheap SATA SSD.
Are those Nytro XF1440 write IOPS correct? 3-7K random write IOPS vs 230K random write IOPS for the Intel 750? What causes such a huge discrepancy (assuming it's not a typo on one or the other)
Yeah, random writes really are that slow on the models optimized for reads. The capacity dependence is a little weird, though: 6k for the 480GB, 7k for the 960GB, and 3k for the 1800GB. See the spec sheet: https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-...
In the enterprise market we're seeing a very strong trend toward knowing your workload and buying a drive that matches your needs. So some of the enterprise drives rolling out are highly specialized and completely unsuited for the client market. Others would be great performers but cost several times more than consumers want to pay.
wow, yeah, I guess the tradeoffs can be that great. I did some engineering work years ago on trading off NAND handling properties in a RAID configuration but we didn't run the spreadsheets out to factors of 100x! Now I guess I need to figure out my workloads better, but it's scary to think that the storage hardware choice could leave me stuck in an architectural choice for a few years...
NVDIMMs that just work with no special support needed are just RDIMMS with supercaps and enough flash to save their contents on power failure. Their ordinary online use doesn't touch the flash at all, which makes them completely uninteresting from a benchmarking perspective.
For true all-flash DIMMs, the only solution out there seems to be from Diablo Technologies and licensees like SanDisk. They were mired in a patent lawsuit earlier this year that kept their chips off the market for a few months.
So there's really only one thing for us to benchmark, and they haven't offered samples and their product hasn't been easy to buy, and our current equipment doesn't support RDIMMs anyways.
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BPB - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Price estimate? One can dream, can't one?extide - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
C'mon SSD makers, where is the flood of CONSUMER PCIE SSD's, and I am talking native ones, none of this PCIe to SATA RAID crap that we have had for ages.Impulses - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Are the two new lines here not native? Or not consumer class? Specs wise they seem to be in line with both the Samsung SM951 & Intel 750, only available in even higher capacities... 800/960GB on M.2 probably has some exited since the Samsung tops out at half a gig.Outside of enthusiasts, demand is probably not very high still, otherwise Samsung would be all over it. I'm curious whether U.2 will take over or coexist with M.2 on the desktop, seems it's pretty easy to go from the latter to the former, even if the adapter looks awkward.
extide - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
These appear to be enterprize oriented, especially because of the endurance ratings. I would guess these will be on the order of $0.65/gb for the 0.3 DWPD drives and $1.00/gb or more for the 3 DWPD drives.Impulses - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
$0.65GB would make those variants cheaper than the SM951 & 750 tho, seems like there's potential overlap here...extide - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
That is true ... well I guess we will wait and see. The random write IOPS seems to be pretty much 2009-2010 levels though. I really WANT to love the Intel 750, but the SM951 just seems so elegant, less power, less channels, etc, but still as good or better performance. I am honestly a bit disappointed with the 750 in most workloads .. Although if you were say running a bunch of VM's from one SSD, the 750 would be perfect!Impulses - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
I just bought an SM951 (so tiny, for some reason I pictured them more like the size of regular DIMMs than SO-DIMMs), I'm disappointed I can't do jack with it until Intel decides to start selling 6700K in NA...I'm not entirely sure if M.2 is the answer for desktops in the long run tho, or if it turns into a mix of M.2 plus those M.2 to U.2 adapters or what... I guess eventually someone will decide to do something else with the space taken by worthless SATA Express ports.
Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Yeah, I want to be writing more about consumer PCIe stuff, but they keep sending me info about enterprise drives. The controller tech will be finding its way into the consumer market now that most new systems are NVMe-capable, but it's the OEMs that provide sufficient demand, not the retail customers. If you want a thriving ecosystem of M.2 NVMe products for consumers, direct your complaints to Dell, Lenovo, et al.In the meantime, the enterprise product lines are a lot more diverse so there are a lot more products to write about, especially this week with Flash Memory Summit being the hot venue for showing off products to other businesses. By the end of the month we should be mostly back to the usual routine of more full reviews and fewer announcements and a better balance of consumer vs. enterprise stuff. But this week, I'm barely keeping up with all the announcements, and the timing is all staggered so we haven't had the chance to compile it all in to one big round-up.
extide - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
No worries, keep up the good work! I like to hear all news, so definitely post up all you get.BurnItDwn - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
yah, Prices man, where be the prices? How much for the 4/3.4TB drive ... that sounds like a good size, I could install whatever I want from my steam library and still have space to buy a new game every now and again...Impulses - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
You jest, but I'm someone will eventually drop a few grand on something like this just for their Steam library, and then realize it doesn't make much of a difference vs a cheap SATA SSD.Visual - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
What cheap SATa SSD is 3.4TB?Denithor - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
As the saying goes, if you have to ask, you can't afford it...squidsurprise - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Can we get it compared to other PCIe/M2 SSDs? Like the Intel 750 or the Samsung?darkgreen - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Are those Nytro XF1440 write IOPS correct? 3-7K random write IOPS vs 230K random write IOPS for the Intel 750? What causes such a huge discrepancy (assuming it's not a typo on one or the other)Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Yeah, random writes really are that slow on the models optimized for reads. The capacity dependence is a little weird, though: 6k for the 480GB, 7k for the 960GB, and 3k for the 1800GB. See the spec sheet: https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-...In the enterprise market we're seeing a very strong trend toward knowing your workload and buying a drive that matches your needs. So some of the enterprise drives rolling out are highly specialized and completely unsuited for the client market. Others would be great performers but cost several times more than consumers want to pay.
darkgreen - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
wow, yeah, I guess the tradeoffs can be that great. I did some engineering work years ago on trading off NAND handling properties in a RAID configuration but we didn't run the spreadsheets out to factors of 100x! Now I guess I need to figure out my workloads better, but it's scary to think that the storage hardware choice could leave me stuck in an architectural choice for a few years...marraco - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
When will anandtech review SSD on DIMM memory modules?They are the best ones, and do not require a nvme or PCIe slot.
Billy Tallis - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
NVDIMMs that just work with no special support needed are just RDIMMS with supercaps and enough flash to save their contents on power failure. Their ordinary online use doesn't touch the flash at all, which makes them completely uninteresting from a benchmarking perspective.For true all-flash DIMMs, the only solution out there seems to be from Diablo Technologies and licensees like SanDisk. They were mired in a patent lawsuit earlier this year that kept their chips off the market for a few months.
So there's really only one thing for us to benchmark, and they haven't offered samples and their product hasn't been easy to buy, and our current equipment doesn't support RDIMMs anyways.
YoloPascual - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
But nobody wants to use SSDs.