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Do you think sata m.2 will be unsupported?

dwang040

9 months ago

Was looking through reddit and engaged with a member. They were discussing how sata m.2 support was dying in notebook sceneries as well as certain motherboards (an old board, but the Msi H110I PRO). I mean, standards have changed since then but would that really be a case? I mean, PS/2 is still around but the last time I had a mouse/ keyboard that was PS/2 was for windows 98 and xp. I also feel that killing off something like sata m.2 support wouldn't really benefit a company much (as of right now) due to the price differences between sata and m.2 (assuming consumers pay for the cheaper one should they be looking for a generic use ssd). The price gap has decrease, that's a fact, but has it decreased enough, I personally don't think so.

Comments

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

probably not going to happen any time soon

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

Yeah that's what I was thinking too, even if a change were to happen. It could be a while. Thinking back, PS/2 is still available on motherboards, wifi routers still support old standards... But maybe they have a reason for old support, my technical hardware knowledge is lacking so I wouldn't know of there is another reason other than compatability/ support for older gen devices.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

I will say laptops could be a special case. That is, most people who buy regular laptops don’t upgrade them. So I can see where laptop vendors trying to control costs would not want to include extra components that will never (or rarely) get used—price competition is too steep. So supporting 2.5” SATA is easy since it’s simply a one-for-one swap iwth 2.5” HDD (don’t need any extra parts, bios, code).

But for laptops, M.2 drive is more of a specialty item ... for example gaming laptops tend to come with them, because gamers are willing to pay the cost premium for high end CPU, GPU, and M.2 storage. But cheaper laptops often don’t come with M.2 support at all (because users who buy these don’t use them). And if enough of these gamers who buy gaming laptops are always buying them with NVMe (and not M.2 SATA), then I would see a future where vendors could opt to only include/support M.2 NVMe and not M.2 SATA. Just look at high end gaming laptops today and see how many have VGA ports—like none, because the buyers want DisplayPort.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

Sounds pretty dumb to me. Assuming the chipset already supports SATA, there should be all the pins you need to connect things. The notebook manufactures could be saving pennies on the assumption that all their M.2 designs will be PCIe (but that assumes that they both want to save pennies leaving out a feature and pay the premium for PCIe M.2 designs every time (they might only sell to the big boys who can expect to buy M.2 cards without a price premium for PCIe).

I'd expect to only see this on OEM systems, and only after PCIe has a zero premium over SATA. Leaving them off retail boards doesn't make any sense.

Note: I'd still recommend avoiding SATA M.2 cards simply to avoid the issue of not having enough M.2 slots for eventual NVMe cards (NVMe flash, optane, whatever). Just connect them to SATA ports and leave M.2 for NVMe (although I've heard of SATA only slots. But you're still assuming that your next board will have them and/or you don't want to bring your SATA drive along).

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

Interesting, I haven't been following along in the notebook industry very well recently so my relevence in it is lacking heavily but it is possible that they are oem parts and in that case, it would make sense to just leave it as nvme only if the laptop only ships with nvme drives.

A sata m.2 does "waste" space. I guess I personally like/ still suggest them as a saving money thing. For someone like me who would never benefit from nvme durability (assuming it's mlc or slc) and speeds, so I would rather just save the bucks. Of course different people and different use cases.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

If M.2 SATA drives are cheaper than SATA drives, then by all means buy one (I think most people buy them for cable management reasons, so I thought there was still a premium). I think I've seen a few motherboards with M.2 SATA-only sockets (presumably with a few PCIe and/or combo slots as well), but would be worried about future boards. I just can't imagine a future without SATA cables on motherboards.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

I also feel that killing off something like sata m.2 support wouldn't really benefit a company much (as of right now) due to the price differences between sata and m.2

For OEM systems like laptops and prebuilts the difference is minimal in actual SSD costs and you save money on the motherboard wiring as well as BIOS space.

Consumers may pay less for Sata but that doesn't mean that they actually cost less to produce.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

Ah, I guess the wording was a little off. What I meant was was that, let's say someone is looking for a m.2 ssd for some general purpose storage. In this case, they might end up with a sata ssd but if a motherboard company doesn't support sata m.2, then that motherboard company won't be able sell motherboards, so if goh scale that up to consumer lvl population, that would a lot of missed motherboard opportunities.

But in terms of manufacterimg and cost wise, I don't think it would affect manufacter as much as lost customer potential due to in compatability.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

But in terms of manufacterimg and cost wise, I don't think it would affect manufacter as much as lost customer potential due to in compatability.

This has nothing to do with users looking for general storage even looking at your example motherboard.

(an old board, but the Msi H110I PRO).

That is a Pro series board not intended for general users.

It is the same with OEM like HP and Dell they are not going to spend the extra on a extra Sata controller to use more then the four that the current chipsets support when it saves them money to use NVME as well as being a better selling point to end users.

That is why HP moved to manufacturing their own SSD.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hp-ex920-ssd,5527.html

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hp-ex900-ssd,5531.html

From a strict Product In Box consumer who builds their own then no it doesn't make as much sense but that market has diminished in total sales over the last several years only seeing a bump again during the last crypto boom.

For OEM it makes perfect sense since you add value even if only slightly at the cost as it were of simpler less expensive motherboards to produce and no increase in SSD pricing since the NAND used on both is the same and there is no real increase in controller pricing between newer Sata and NVME controllers.

  • 9 months ago
  • 1 point

I just read a thing on U.2 which seems to be the next upgrade for sata, including Nvme, more for servers and stressing hot swap ability as well as larger physical size acceptance (2.5/3.5 drives) than M.2 provides.

M.2 seems to be working well for smaller retail PCs/etc, not sure why they would dump it. Also doubt the popularity of SFF syle PCs is going away, though you can fit 2.5/3.5 drives in most of them the M.2 card certainly gives more room for a tiny-er PC. And the more M.2 drives sold the lower the prices will get. There certainly is less packaging costs with them, "here stick this bare circuit board in there" lol. Can't get any more bare than that.

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