Skylake build - which interface and which SSDs will be the ones to get?

[CakeMonster]

I haven't followed the new standards closely, and everything past SATA3 is a huge mess to me.

What kind of interface will most likely be the new standard and which should I get when (if) I get a Skylake setup in 2 months? Will all the popular SSDs be available for the new interface?

 

[mikeymikec]

No idea personally.

AFAIK, there's:

SATA 6Gbps
SATA Express
M.2 (SATA AHCI - legacy, PCIE AHCI or NVMe)

IMO AFAIK they all suck in their present forms:

SATA 6Gbps obviously isn't very forward-thinking and we're already saturating that bus without trying too hard.

SATA Express is a ginormous connector (2 SATA-E ports where approximately six SATA ones could fit before), it's about as elegant as a bucket of bricks and seems like something that the least creative interface designer could have come up with after too many drinks in the pub.

M.2 (assuming that we're not talking about the legacy type) isn't that bad, but considering that all the solutions I've seen involve being seated parallel with the mainboard, the idea of having more than two plugged in seems absurd given the size of the M.2 boards. If they start standing perpendicular to the board then they'll need physical support in some way.

Based on my understanding of the available choices, PCIE NVMe seems like the most appropriate however it seems extremely limiting in terms of how many storage devices could be added to a given system, (assuming that my ATX board had five spare PCIE slots after the graphics card, that's not that many storage devices, and then there would be no available option to add any other form of card to the computer), so it doesn't make much sense.

I'm surprised that something like a SATA interface with more connecting pins hasn't been designed to take the throughput to 12Gbps while something wholly new is devised. Has the SATA port truly been taken as far as it can go?

Perhaps a combination of M.2 and PCIE NVMe is a way forward? A big-ass 16x card with as many M.2 connectors on as possible? I would have thought with a bit of multi-layered socket designs (like the sort that many laptops have for memory), I would have thought that one could put 8x M.2 connectors, utilising both sides of the card?

 

[Dahak]

I would say
SATA 6Gbps or M.2 NVMe would be the most forward looking.

From a speed perspective it will be M.2 NVMe drives but they will still be making SATA drives

SATA Express is dead in the water, I have not see any drives that use this interface at the moment

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm surprised that something like a SATA interface with more connecting pins hasn't been designed to take the throughput to 12Gbps while something wholly new is devised. Has the SATA port truly been taken as far as it can go?

Wouldn't even need more pins. There has already been 12Gbit/sec SAS enterprise drives for several years. The standards committees in charge of SATA decided that the consumer didn't deserve the 12Gbit/sec upgrade.

Can you imagine if PCI-E 4.0 is "enterprise only" too?

 

[Auric]

Uninterested in internal storage cards. The traditional 2.5" form factor is preferred for use with backplanes for powering off, easy swapping, and durability by being encased.

 

[stockwiz]

Looks like both the M.2 interface and regular PCI Express SSDs are going to be here for a few years. Could go either way. Most skylake motherboards I'd imagine will have both anyways. You really don't have to do anything special... any motherboard with a PCI Express x2 slot will work, and they will all have them.

The SATA interface has pretty much been saturated for now and would be there mostly for storage drives until SSDs catch up in size.... or for SSDs since they are still plenty fast on the SATA interface and are a better value at this point. Many of the M.2 drives out now use the SATA interface and not PCI Express.