No (validated?) SATA Express for 9 series chipset

[ShintaiDK]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/sata-express-intel-9-series-chipsets/63503.html

It seems SATA Express support might not come to the 9 series chipset. While delay in technology is always bad. I cant help thnking on IDE/Floppy every time I see that implementation. Unlike the elegant laptop solution for SATA Express, the desktop/server solution simply looks like a bad joke in dire need of a redesign.

This is the big format one for laptops:

 

[TheThirdMan]

That is too big a connector. I don't get why they can't maintain the size of the current one?

 

[NTMBK]

Such a joke of a connector. I really hope that mini-ITX boards get the laptop style slot.

 

[meloz]

What is the point of Haswell "refresh", then? SATA Express was the only major upgrade with the new chipsets. Situation is farcical. Intel should cancel this stupid "refresh" and give us Broadwell on desktop when it is ready.

 

[Galatian]

Well my next desktop upgrade should be meaningful in every way, so I'm waiting for SATA Express and DDR4. I guess I'm really not bothered with this, but since Haswell was mostly a side grade compared to Ivy Bridge on desktop, Broadwell better bring some bigger performance gains, otherwise it really is a let-down.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well my next desktop upgrade should be meaningful in every way, so I'm waiting for SATA Express and DDR4. I guess I'm really not bothered with this, but since Haswell was mostly a side grade compared to Ivy Bridge on desktop, Broadwell better bring some bigger performance gains, otherwise it really is a let-down.

If you wait for DDR4, then Broadwell wont satisfy you either.

Haswell-E/EP/EX will use DDR4. And then later Skylake on the LGA11xx platform.

 

[CakeMonster]

So, when can we then expect to get higher SSD transfer speeds on Intel's mainstream platform? Late 2015? 3rd party controllers are not an alternative for me.

This is quite an interesting question considering the fact that 2014 seemed like a great time to upgrade my SSD, but without SATA-E there's not that much point anymore except for capacity.

 

[seitur]

SSD are in a stagation anyway.

Units that would be big enough and with fast enough controller to take advantage of SATA Express would be heavily priced today anyway.

If high or even moderately high priced satisfy you then you already have SSD solutions that do offer speeds that will be achieved by SATA Express.
So basically SATA Express by itself won't bring anything new much anyway.

SSD and SATA Express (and it's future revisions) to make significant leap need one thing - severe SSD price drops, going below 20cents / 1GB, allowing SSD to phase out HDDs for every user that need 1 TB or less.

 

[Haserath]

Wasn't there supposed to be a better interconnect for SSD's anyway?

 

[jpiniero]

What is the point of Haswell "refresh", then? SATA Express was the only major upgrade with the new chipsets. Situation is farcical. Intel should cancel this stupid "refresh" and give us Broadwell on desktop when it is ready.

OEMs need new product obviously, and it gives them an out in case 14 nm ended up being late (which it ends up being)

 

[VirtualLarry]

All the while, SAS gets 12Gbit/sec signalling rates, while SATA doesn't get an upgrade.

 

[ShintaiDK]

All the while, SAS gets 12Gbit/sec signalling rates, while SATA doesn't get an upgrade.

Yep, it seems rather artificial that SATA doesnt get a 12Gbit version. And the abomination of a SATA Express cable connector screams for a redesign. SATA 12Gbit would more or less also kill SATA Express.

SATA Express is fine for the small NGFF/M2 design. But add a cable and it goes wrong. And there is essentially nothing stopping you from even adding 4 of these on the back of a MiniITX board.

I wonder if there is something bigger behind. Like complains from mobo manufactors and OEMs. Because I have really problems seeing SATA Express cable version take off.

 

[Shivansps]

Thats probably because someone wants to remove SATA constrollers, if SATA Express is adopted, SATA controllers will be removed some years after that, after all its just a PCI-E cable...

 

[Unoid]

No reason we shouldn't have a next gen interface for storage.
We've nearly maxed out sequential on Sata-3 for 2-3 years now.

 

[Shivansps]

The thing is, its poorly done, just make a new interface, a PCI-E x1 3.0 cable whiout the power and dont try to cram sata with it, the result will be a cable very similar to a sata one.