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Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

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21–30 of 97 posts

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#21
post #14

The angle of insertion seems like a total deal breaker for any sort of embedded device.

I mean, you could create a different housing for an embedded device like a cell phone that receives the same card. I remember when SIM cards used to go in at an angle and flip down like in the diagram, but now all the housings are just slide-in with spring loaded contacts.

Is that considered 'non-standard' or is the connector part and an enclosing case all that matters?

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#22

Definitely nice for SFF... but I don't think that higher performing devices will be able to dissipate enough heat from the lid alone. Most PCIe gen 4 SSDs have relatively large heat spreaders because of the load. Similarly, I keep thinking it would be cool to have a GPU socket format that could sit adjacent to the CPU so that a large heat pipe / cooler could be attached to both.

>I keep thinking it would be cool to have a GPU socket format that could sit adjacent to the CPU so that a large heat pipe / cooler could be attached to both.

That's pretty much exactly how modern high end laptops with dedicated graphics processors work

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#23
post #15

I worry about the spring force of those pins after so many extreme temperature changes. Or AMD spring connectors design are similar to these? EDIT: I meant "Intel spring pin connectors"

It seems like it's basically like CPU socket spring pins, which I would assume have much higher thermal loading.

by just pictures Intel spring pins are shorter and broader on the base side and with a steep rising angle. These look (quite) longer and with a lower rising angle. I guess these pins are more feeble and imprint less force than CPU spring pins.

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#24
post #6
post #2

Wonder if we'll see these on the Raspberry Pi 5 and other embedded boards? This is pretty amazing; much better than the current eMMC and SDCard based storage solutions on a lot of dev boards.

Is it better than SD Express though, which also supports PCIe and is backwards compatible with existing cards?

I don't think the connector is the problem but the devices you connect to. RPis are notorious for having a poor lifespan due to reading/writing from the SD cards, but I think that's mostly due to the cost tier of a $30 computer.

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#26
post #2

Wonder if we'll see these on the Raspberry Pi 5 and other embedded boards? This is pretty amazing; much better than the current eMMC and SDCard based storage solutions on a lot of dev boards.

RockPi has a full size M.2 connector that accepts most NVMe drives: http://rockpi.org/

I bought one of these for fun, with the whole kit, NVMe drive and a nice aluminum case... not sure what I am going to do with it but it's a really nice little PC and amazing what it can do.

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#27
post #20

How is this an "innovative connector design"? This is exactly how sim card slots worked on many old Nokias, the mechanism is literally identical.

Innovation doesn't equal inventing new stuff. I think it is quite innovative how they use an old mechanism for a new use case.

It's not a new use case, it's still used to connect a card to a board. Just like the hinged connector used for microSD before this [0]. It's more USB 3.0 type A connector vs. the USB 2.0 type A.

Neither the connector itself nor the application are innovative. Which is why nobody is pointing out the particular innovation in the connector.

[0] https://www.yamaichi.de/products/connector-solutions/card-co...

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#28
post #27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innovation doesn't equal inventing new stuff. I think it is quite innovative how they use an old mechanism for a new use case.

It's not a new use case, it's still used to connect a card to a board. Just like the hinged connector used for microSD before this [0]. It's more USB 3.0 type A connector vs. the USB 2.0 type A. Neither the connector itself nor the application are innovative. Which is why nobody is pointing out the particular innovation in the connector. [0] https://www.yamaichi.de/products/connector-solutions/card-co...

Using it for a smaller NVMe SSD, however, is. Quite clearly.

You can call just about anything "not innovative" if you're sufficiently reductionist about it. The idea that the only "true" innovation is some totally unknown, totally revolutionary idea that came completely out of nowhere fully formed is a toxic one that robs people and companies of just praise for coming up with interesting and useful new things, while others get lauded for making a whizbang concept prototype that's never going to be commercially viable.

This is something no one has done before, even if many of the parts have been done in different ways. That's innovation.

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#29
post #2

Wonder if we'll see these on the Raspberry Pi 5 and other embedded boards? This is pretty amazing; much better than the current eMMC and SDCard based storage solutions on a lot of dev boards.

RockPi has a full size M.2 connector that accepts most NVMe drives: http://rockpi.org/

I bought a Rock Pi 4 and the whole kit-n-kaboodle. Just finished doing some benchmarking and it has pretty impressive performance, but it definitely needs assistance staying cool. The case I have is aluminum with the bottom of the case being a whole-board heatsink, and I still had to set it on top of ice packs with a fan blowing to keep it from throttling under heavy benchmarking load.

I think one thing people don't think about with SBCs is that we are making pretty significant thermal performance trade-offs. I wish somebody made a case with a clean flow through and at least 1 120mm fan in it.

Re: Toshiba Introduces New Tiny NVMe SSD Form Factor

#30
post #15

I worry about the spring force of those pins after so many extreme temperature changes. Or AMD spring connectors design are similar to these? EDIT: I meant "Intel spring pin connectors"

You're talking about heat cycling? What affect does that have on a spring? Are the temperatures here even extreme for a piece of metal?
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