Plextor M.2 PCI-E SSD Drives without Adaptors due June

LordBarrass · 8 May 2014 at 09:30

Also please note that on the new motherboards some will have a M.2 SATA Slot on it offering around 600Mbps and some will have the M.2 PCI-E Slot on it offering the full 1000Mbps. From looking at the new ranges the higher spec'd and Gaming boards will have the higher PCI-E slots on them. So please be aware when chosing your new motherboard and M.2 combo.

thel33ter · 8 May 2014 at 11:01

Is there going to be either a drop in Msata SSD prices now these are out? And is there an adaptor from Msata to M.2 on the horizon?

Tute · 8 May 2014 at 15:29

andy_mk3 said:
I guess this is the future for SSDs now? Makes sense really I guess, bypass the need for extra cables and power connectors and limited speeds of SATA, just pipe it straight to the board

Sort of. We're still getting SATA express, but from what I can tell it's basically a connector that pipes a number of PCIe lanes to the drive.

So think of it as the same thing but in cable form rather than connecting directly to a slot.

thel33ter said:
Is there going to be either a drop in Msata SSD prices now these are out? And is there an adaptor from Msata to M.2 on the horizon?

There wouldn't be much point - mSATA is still limited to the standard 6Gb speed and most connectors aren't even that. The one on my Intel DH77DF for example, is only 3Gb.

jh30uk · 8 May 2014 at 16:08

So what is my Mobo in post #20?

LLBDTiberio · 9 May 2014 at 09:22

Been waiting for these to come out, just in time for my upgrade to Z97 itx

.
Now to wait and see if Asus comes out with a Z97 impact.

Tute · 10 May 2014 at 12:31

jh30uk said:
So what is my Mobo in post #20?

It's going to be subject to how many lanes are piped to the M2 drive.

Given the size of the connection it's going to be x1, so depending on PCIe 2.0 or 3.0, either 500MB/s or 985MB/s.

The first of those is actually slower than SATA3.

As an ITX user myself, SATA Express is the only way to go for me, there's no spare PCI express slots for an SSD.

Exoon · 10 May 2014 at 20:39

Are these prices going to be the same on release or is it a special pre-order price ?

Also, will the MSI The Gaming 7 support the full 1000Mbps ?

JCBeastie · 11 May 2014 at 18:59

Are you expecting M.2 SSDs from other manufacturers to start coming in?

Luke_Bowman · 11 May 2014 at 20:38

Nice step towards compacting pc's.

Especially useful in notebooks I imagine

LordBarrass · 12 May 2014 at 09:54

We will get other manufacturers releasing similar M.2 PCI-E shortly but Plextor are the first ones to release to me the details and a lead time on when they will arrive.

JCBeastie · 12 May 2014 at 10:47

abarrass said:
We will get other manufacturers releasing similar M.2 PCI-E shortly but Plextor are the first ones to release to me the details and a lead time on when they will arrive.

Looking to build a system before July so hope you get stock for June; The ETA for the Plextors is a bit tight (as I'll be handing the system over around then).

There's not many about but with Z97 landed hopefully we'll see more M.2 (and SATA-Express I guess).

Seen some Crucial drives but they were slow, Samsung and Sandisks offerings look competitive but no-one I'd trust to purchase from has them; go OcUK!