Future of m.2 SATA ? ( not nvme )

[Donnie Fisher]

I’m in the process of changing my nas from a rack server sat in the garage to something much smaller. It has to serve storing photos and docs, and has a dedicated cctv HDD in it ( which I’ll keep )

Over the 8 years of using a nas, its only acquired about 750gb of data and its not going up very quickly either … so the thought has occurred that I could move to SSD storage. Physically, the best use of space would be a carrier which fits 4x m.2 SATA drives in the space of a single 3.5 bay.

With the likes of Truenas I could initially have 2x2tb m.2 drives, expanding to a second pair later to increase the space … and then from there swapping out with larger ones as time goes on.

but that’s SATA ... And not nvme, which seems to be the more prevalent m.2 format.

Is SATA m.2 going to run out of steam, or do you think that in 4 years time, you’ll be able to get large volume SATA drives in an m.2 format ?

 

[Tetras]

Is SATA m.2 going to run out of steam

Yes, I think so. It was common to see PCI-E & SATA M.2 slots, but motherboards seem to be dumping SATA compatibility now.

do you think that in 4 years time, you’ll be able to get large volume SATA drives in an m.2 format ?

Probably, I think they're able to re-use the controllers & NAND from the 2.5 drives? But, I'd expect choice to shrink.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

Thats my thought, it already feels like SATA m.2 is shrinking in options, and to go down that route is like walking down an alley where you can see it’s maybe a dead end, yet nvme clearly seems to have a future.

It’s just a pity there isn’t something like a sas-like controller card you can plug multiple nvme’s into, yet only use an 8x slot. ( i know it’d reduce speed, but hey! )

Maybe I should sack the idea and stick with a couple of hdd’s

 

[tamzzy]

the price difference between a sata m.2 and pcie m.2 ssd is also minimal
if you're buying new...why settle for a sata m.2 drive?

 

[Donnie Fisher]

Agreed that nvme has benefits. But speed becomes a moot point in a nas that’ll be on a gigabit network. HDD’s can saturate it, SATA SSD definitely will with the benefit of near instant response from cold and lower power usage ( a goal of this project ) Nvme better again i suppose Over sata.

but … nvme needs lanes to the cpu, of which its not easy to expand.

For example, the itx board i‘m going to be using has 2x m.2 slots. cause it’s an AM4 with APU, as I understand it, that’ll leave me 8x lanes on slot one of the board … a pcie card in there would get me another 2 nvme drives maybe.

Sata gets me more with less hassle. The board has 4 sata slots from the outset. I could easily add another 8 SATA slots through a relatively cheap controller card running in IT mode. In a case that i can reasonably fit 3x 3.5hdds and some 2.5 drives ... Through m.2 drives i could fit a lot into that small space.

 

[AthlonXP1800]

Is SATA m.2 going to run out of steam

Yes both SATA and m.2 will run out of steam soon.

After NVMe 2.0 was announced, Seagate was the first company to demonstrated world first NVMe 2.0 3.5 inch HDD that will use NVMe 2.0 interface.

OCP 22: World's first Seagate NVMe 2.0 hard disk (HDD) is now in flesh and blood

Last year Seagate demoed NVMe HDD inside a custom built enclosure to show the benefits of PCIe interface over SAS and SATA. This time, we have a finished sample of the world's first Exos NVMe HDD.

www.neowin.net

I think we will see first 2.5 inch SSD with NVMe 2.0 interface soon to replace SATA 3.0 interface that will be great for DirectStorage games and also maybe next generation Blu-ray drives with NVMe 2.0 interface too.

We will see issue with PCI Express 5.0 m.2 SSDs soon, many SSDs will have active fans to keep temp down but temp are too high compared to PCI Express 4.0. Accorded to Phison interview about PCI Express 5.0 m.2 SSD required active fans to removed higher temp heat dissipation, they were concerned about future of PCI Express 6.0, 7.0 SSDs will be much faster but it will be hotter than PCI Express 5.0. They said m.2 SSDs are great at PCI Express 3.0 and 4.0 heat dissipation but very ineffective at PCI Express 5.0 and beyond so Phison and others are currently developing brand new connector form factor called XT2 that will replace m.2 form factor.

XFMEXPRESS™ | PCIe® / NVMe™ Storage Device | KIOXIA - Europe (English)

With an unparalleled combination of features, XFMEXPRESS™ is designed to revolutionize storage in ultra-mobile PCs, IoT devices and embedded applications. Offered in a small removable form factor, XFMEXPRESS™ supports PCIe® and NVMe™ interfaces and is compatible with the new JEDEC XFM Device...

europe.kioxia.com

XT2 SSD are much smaller and thinner than m.2 SSD, 2.23mm thicker on m.2 SSD vs 1.4mm thicker on XT2 SSD. Low end XT2 SSDs on mobile phones, laptops, tablets etc will use NVMe 1.4 run on PCI Express 4.0 X2, high end XT2 SSDs for desktops will use NVMe 2.0 run on PCI Express 5.0 X4.

M.2 SSDs was used in data center but it faced many issues, m.2 SSDs are not designed for data centers, the form factor is too small and all failed suffered overheating and it not designed to be hot-swap. Few years ago SNIA developed new form factor EDSFF for next generation SSDs that will replace m.2 form factor for servers and data centers. EDSFF SSDs are hot-swap, use large heatsink and it can use higher bandwidth up to X16 PCI Express lane than m.2 SSD which are limited to use maximum X4 PCI Express lane.

EDSFF - A New Form Factor for Next Gen Servers and Storage | KIOXIA - United States (English)

EDSFF aims to address the issues and limitations enterprise and data center uses face with legacy form factors by designing a new specification meant for NAND flash memory.

americas.kioxia.com

SSD Form Factors | SNIA

Updated November 2024 Solid-state drives (SSDs) are commonly used in client, hyperscale and enterprise compute environments. They typically come in three flavors: NVMe®, SAS, and SATA. Since SSDs are made from flash memory, they can be built in many different form factors. This resource guide is...

www.snia.org