14 DAY TRIAL // If one were to go over the M.2 solid state drive market with a fine comb, they might be in for some serious disappointment. After all, very few of the new solid state drives actually live up to the potential of the form factor. Super Talent's newest NGFF SSD is evidence of that.
Then again, wiring the M.2 slot through the PCI Express interface does not make much sense when motherboards with PCIe-based M.2 interfaces are so rare.
Also, while the transfer speed of 1.8 GB/s is wonderful, it does, naturally, demand a pretty steep payment from customers.
So, to cater to the needs of people without the money or inclination to pay for a PCI Express M.2 SSD and a supporting motherboard, Super talent has unveiled the NGFF DX1.
This solid state drive relies on the SATA III technology to communicate with the host system, rather than the PCI Express root complex. Because of that, the read speed is of up to 480 MB/s, while the write speed is of 400 MB/s.
Those are actually pretty low marks compared to what even SATA III 2.5-inch drives can accomplish (550 MB/s with the right controller chip).
On the other hand, M.2 drives have less space for chips, which means that capacities don't go quite as high as they do for “normal” solid state storage devices. And the lower the capacity is, the slower the SSD. That's how these things go.
Case in point, the Super Talent NGFF DX1 has a top storage space of 256 GB and the lowest possible capacity of 32 GB. By comparison, 2.5-inch units can go all the way to 1 TB now.
There are both SLC- and MLC-based NGFF DX1 drives, but we're not sure how much lower (or higher, unlikely though it is) the former work compared to the latter. Even the company's own website, the product page itself, lacks that information.
The NGFF DX1 solid state drives are intended for mobile computers (notebooks, ultrabooks, even netbooks as rare as they are) and embedded applications (kiosks, digital signage, and other embedded PCs), and maybe even all-in-one computers.
In case you were wondering, the cache memory is DDR3, 256 MB to be exact. Unfortunately, Super Talent did not share any pricing information, or even an exact availability date. Probably because shipments and payments are subject to negotiations, order size, urgency of delivery, that sort of thing.