Where the hell are PCMCIA, mini PCI-E, and PCI Express SSD's?

brxndxn

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2001
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I remember reading a bunch of different articles on how OCZ, Samsung, and others were making PCI Express and mini PCI-E SSD's.. In 2008-2009..

Now, it's halfway through 2010 and I cannot find anything being sold in this area. There are companies that stuck a compactflash on a PCMCIA adapter - but that is nowhere near the speed of an actual SSD - especially since most of them use a virtual USB 2.0 device..

I cannot understand how there is supposedly no market for this.. Every single person that uses a laptop has an open PCMCIA or PCI Express slot.. Most people have an open mini PCI-E slot..

Here's the kind of device I'm talking about:

http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-mini-pcie-ssd-up-to-64gb-of-super-compact-storage-2347726/

or here (except this one doesn't have a built-in controller)

http://www.mobilewhack.com/ocz-technology-announces-new-mini-pcie-ssds/


Argh.. where do I buy this?
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,893
546
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I cannot understand how there is supposedly no market for this.. Every single person that uses a laptop has an open PCMCIA or PCI Express slot.. Most people have an open mini PCI-E slot..
I've yet to service a notebook that has an open mini PCI-E slot (most had mini-PCI), nor do I own one. Most are either Cardbus or ExpressCard.
 
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RU482

Lifer
Apr 9, 2000
12,689
3
81
While I agree with you in theory, it's not so simple. Each computer would need to be able to recognize such an SSD (bios). There is no standard for this, and (thankfully) netbooks have migrated to more standard 2.5 and 1.8 inch SATA drives.
 

Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
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X-press card would be the most likely candidate however most Xpress card slots are actually limited to USB speeds. They aren't hooked directly to the PCI-E line.
 

EarthwormJim

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2003
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I don't believe the drives you linked are electrically PCI-E. They're either SATA or PATA over a PCI-E connector. They would not work on a regular PCI-E bus.
 

brxndxn

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2001
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The Samsung drive has a built-in SATA controller.. So in theory, it should funtion like a pci-e controller with a single sata drive plugged into it.

I want it.