So is SATA really done at 6?

[Jeff7181]

As as these driver progress, are we going to have to start worrying about them taking bandwidth from other technologies (say SLI/ Crossfire)? Or are we not even in the same realm here?

There will just be more PCI-Express lanes in the short term, and if VirtualLarry is right and PCI-Express is going away, it'll just be replaced with a different, faster bus.

The PCI bus was introduced in the early 90's. In the mid 90's AGP replaced PCI for graphics cards. PCI-Express was introduced just before 2005, making it nearly 10 years old. It's about time for a newer, better bus anyway. (PCI-X isn't even worth discussing in this context since it was never adopted in consumer grade products)

 

[Ketchup]

I think Cloudfire777 got it right then. Looking forward to what the future brings.

 

[mikeymikec]

IMO if the industry isn't careful, we're going to end up needing a load of different interfaces on desktop boards 'just in case'.

Most users don't need 12Gbps storage yet. I bet that if I connected my Samsung 840 PRO to a SATA 3Gbps system, I couldn't tell the difference in performance unless I did something that really did exploit the bandwidth potential. As it is, I've got a new WDB 1TB and that SSD in my system, so if I'm transferring between the two, the maximum throughput I'm likely to get is 180MB/sec. I don't often do large file copies that are purely on the SSD.

IMO, get SATA 12Gbps on the table with the usual backwards compatibility, then spend time coming up with an elegant replacement for SATA that has some decent evolutionary headroom.

According to wikipedia, PATA was around (ie. 'current') for 17 years. If SATA was phased out in 2014, that would be nine years in total. I still have some PATA drives knocking around. Boards had PATA sockets until about 2-4 years ago.

If the successor to SATA isn't properly planned out, then we could end up replacing it in half the time SATA has been around. It would be a royal PITA for everyone involved. AFAIK no version of Windows supports booting off of a PCIe SSD yet, let alone what is dreamed up after SATA or the successor to that.

Furthermore, getting companies to work within constraints is sometimes helpful - before netbooks came along, who would have thought that Windows's memory footprint would actually DROP with future versions? Similar things have happened with regard to power usage and processor design due to practical constraints.

 

[Cerb]

Windows 8.1 supports NVMe, allegedly:
http://www.nvmexpress.org/blog/nvm-...ed-to-windows-8-1-and-windows-server-2012-r2/

Also, any that come out providing an AHCI BIOS should boot with Windows 7 and up just fine (but won't be as speedy). IIRC, Plextor is doing this.

 

[ShintaiDK]

This is what I don't get. Why didn't they released 12Gbit SATA at the same time as 12Gbit SAS? Only because technology companies are getting really greedy, and don't want "consumers" to get the same technology as "enterprise". That's why we don't get ECC anymore (and suffer from random memory errors), and why consumer PCs will be exclusively Atom-based in the future, you can already see the writing on the wall, with Atom PCs taking over the low-end, with future Celerons and Pentiums being exclusively Atom-based, with Core being reserved for the higher-end. Eventually, Core will only be found in servers, and Intel's server-derived Enthusiast line, with CPU prices north of $500.

Edit: And they wonder why the consumer PC industry is in a slump...

Hardly anyone needs SATA12 as a home user. Remember, the main reason why SSDs are fast is not due to pure bandwidth, but the ability to substain speed at random I/O. Also you would have to drasticly increase the DMI/A-Link Express speed for both Intel and AMD chipsets to gain any benefit. Both companies support the demise of SATA. Not because of greed or hating the consumer. But for the same reason IDE died.

ECC suffers the same, hardly anyone would be willing to pay the premium for 1/8th more memory to get a slightly slower and marginally safer ECC performance on their home PC.

Single socket servers are cheap, so dont say you dont have the option.

 

[Lonyo]

There will just be more PCI-Express lanes in the short term, and if VirtualLarry is right and PCI-Express is going away, it'll just be replaced with a different, faster bus.

The PCI bus was introduced in the early 90's. In the mid 90's AGP replaced PCI for graphics cards. PCI-Express was introduced just before 2005, making it nearly 10 years old. It's about time for a newer, better bus anyway. (PCI-X isn't even worth discussing in this context since it was never adopted in consumer grade products)

PCIe 3.0 was introduced in 2010.
PCIe 4.0 is on the way.

USB3 is fast, but USB was introduced decades ago. Need to replace that with something better.
DDR was introduced over 10 years ago, better get rid of that as well since it's old.
etc etc.

 

[mikeymikec]

Windows 8.1 supports NVMe, allegedly:
http://www.nvmexpress.org/blog/nvm-...ed-to-windows-8-1-and-windows-server-2012-r2/

Also, any that come out providing an AHCI BIOS should boot with Windows 7 and up just fine (but won't be as speedy). IIRC, Plextor is doing this.

I was pondering a really crude way to do it (a PCIe SSD with a SATA cable in the side) - have that or an AHCI BIOS on the card handle the initial boot, then load in storage drivers to handle the device natively ASAP, then Win7 support should even be possible.

Though having said all of this, I can't remember seeing a modern equivalent of the old BIOS's giving a SCSI-like option to boot from another storage system...

 

[ShintaiDK]

You can just use Legacy OptionROM to boot on NVMe devices from Windows 7 for example. Windows 8.1/2012R2 just adds direct support.

Hopefully WIndows 9 should remove any legacy talk at all. Since it should be desireable to use.

 

[Jeff7181]

PCIe 3.0 was introduced in 2010.
PCIe 4.0 is on the way.

USB3 is fast, but USB was introduced decades ago. Need to replace that with something better.
DDR was introduced over 10 years ago, better get rid of that as well since it's old.
etc etc.

Those are revisions to the base technology. Windows XP had multiple Service Packs throughout its lifecycle, that doesn't mean it was a brand new OS with the latest and greatest technology each time a Service Pack was released.

My point is, any time people are clamoring for old technology to be saved or to have continued support, yet doing so holds back the industry as a whole. People complain that the desktop PC industry is being neglected, yet they resist new technology. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I also think we need to look forward as well. Having internal 2½-3½" drives in the future for the 99% crowd is just not gonna happen. It will be like we see with mSATA, M.2 etc. Just plug into the board and be done with it in a small super compact factor.

DDR4 for example will most likely reduce DIMM slots on all regular desktops to 2 as well.

 

[Ketchup]

Do we know what OS's will/can support the new interface?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Do we know what OS's will/can support the new interface?

Windows 8.1/2012R2 and up got direct support. Windows 7/8/2008R2/2012 can be made to work with workarounds.

 

[Ketchup]

Windows 8.1/2012R2 and up got direct support. Windows 7/8/2008R2/2012 can be made to work with workarounds.

Good to know for those who read this. Personally Windows will probably up to 9 or so before I get one. I do wish Intel hadn't changed sockets, as my 2500k is doing just fine.

 

[Jeff7181]

Good to know for those who read this. Personally Windows will probably up to 9 or so before I get one. I do wish Intel hadn't changed sockets, as my 2500k is doing just fine.

That I agree with. Sockets change too often.

 

[Cerb]

Though having said all of this, I can't remember seeing a modern equivalent of the old BIOS's giving a SCSI-like option to boot from another storage system...

They still work. If you install such a card, it will show up in your boot order list. The ability to disable that functionality is something I have not seen in a very long time, though (maybe your mobo would be unbootable w/o it?). I'm pretty sure that's why they moved from a flat device list to a categorized list, too, since on-board AHCI and RAID should have to do that, just as an add-in card would.