Where are the Sata Express drive?

[sblantipodi]

As title.
Intel X99 chipset feature Sata Express support but where are the drives that uses this standard?

Do you know if this drive will be better than M.2 drive?

 

[KenAF]

It depends. The hierarchy is as follows:

(1) M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 (up to 32Gbps theoretical or 3.2GBps real world max)
(2) M.2 PCIe 2.0 X2 (up to 10Gbps theoretical or 1.0GBps real world max)
(2) SATA Express (up to 10Gbps theoretical or 1.0GBps real world max)
(3) SATA 3 (up to 6Gbps theoretical or 600MBps real world max)
(3) M.2 SATA 3 up to 6Gbps theoretical or 600MBps real world max)
(4) M.2 PCIe 2.0 X1 (up to 5Gbps theoretical or 500-550MBps real world max)

You must have both a motherboard and a SSD that supports the same interface to achieve a given level of performance. If you stick a M.2 PCIe 2.0 X1 SSD into a M.2 PCIe 3.0 X3 slot, then you will get a max of 500-550MBps, not 3.2GBps. Similarly, if your motherboard only has a M.2 PCIe 2.0 X2 slot, then you will never achieve more than ~1.0GBps no matter what drive you use.

By the end of September, Samsung plans to ship its SM951 M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 SSD with NVMe, which will deliver 1600MBps throughput (provided you have a motherboard with a M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 slot) or 60 percent greater throughput than is possible with SATA Express. Samsung is expected to ship a SATA Express SSD in 1Q 2015, but, again, it will be limited to around 1000MBps because SATA Express is a slower interface.

Be aware that some X99 motherboard manufacturers like Gigabyte only incorporated M.2 slots at PCIe 2.0 X2 as a cost-cutting measure. There are also very few Z97 boards that have M.2 slots at PCIe 3.0 X4. Some Z97 motherboards only have M.2 PCIe 2.0 X1 slots which are slower than SATA 3.

 

[sblantipodi]

Cool. Thanks!

 

[Happy Hopping]

Why is it that 32 GBps is all in PCIe slot? What happens to SATA express in an actual SSD? Can those SSD, say from Intel, come out in an actual drive?