M.2 is a new form of connectivity that allows a SSD to connect directly to the PCI-E bus allowing for theoretical speeds as high as 2GB/s. However, M.2 drives are complicated in that they allow for a variety of physical dimensions, connectors, and even multiple logical interfaces. To help our customers understand the nuances of M.2 drives, we decided to publish this overview of M.2 SSDs.
M.2 is a new form of connectivity for SSD drives that allows them to connect directly to the PCI-E bus rather than going through a SATA controller. By bypassing the SATA controller a M.2 drive can have a theoretical maximum throughput as high as 2GB/s which is over three times faster than the 600MB/s SATA is limited to! Unfortunately, temperature and motherboard compatibility is a major issue with these M.2 drives.
At Puget Systems, we’ve been using LSI RAID cards for a number of years now and have always been very happy with the quality of both the controllers and the MegaRAID software. The new 9361-8i and 9341-8i RAID controllers from LSI continue in their predecessor’s footsteps but add PCI-E 3.0 support and the new mini-SAS HD SFF8643 12GB/s connector.
Since the release of SATA 6GB/s, there has been some confusion regarding the necessity of using a specific SATA 6Gb/s cable for SATA 6Gb/s drives. We have addressed this in previous articles, but enough time has gone by that we wanted to take another look to see if anything has changed since we last examined the issue.
Solid state discs are amazingly fast compared to their more traditional platter counterparts, but we keep hearing over and over on the web that people are getting lower performance than they expected based on the manufacturer’s advertised performance numbers. In this article, we will be looking at why this is and whether it is normal or or not.
SSD caching is not new, but is something we have not inspected closely since its introduction with the Z68 chipset. In this article, we will be answering the questions: What is SSD caching? How do you set up and configure SSD caching? And what kind of performance improvements you should expect by using it.
In this article, we will be reviewing the speeds of each of the new Intel SSDs (60GB, 120GB, 180GB, 240GB and 480GB) codenamed Cherryville. Intel boasts speeds greater than 500MB/s for read and write, but it is common in the industry for the advertised speeds to be idealized. Because of this, we will be performing our own benchmark testing to find that real world speed of these new drives.
Anyone who has used a digital camera or smart phone has probably seen flash memory cards – small, removable devices on which a variety of data can be stored. Card readers in computers allow easy access to read those memory cards, or write new data to them, but the process can be slow for folks like photographers, who often work with multiple cards each full of image files. Can the move to a faster interface for card readers, like USB 3.0, improve performance substantially?
The USB 3.0 Boost software from Asus is designed to take advantage of the recently introduced UASP (USB attached SCSI protocol) to give a performance boost to supported USB 3.0 devices. In this article we will take a look at exactly how much of a performance increase an USB 3.0 external hard drive can achieve using this software.
With the release of SATA III 6GB/s, we have seen some confusion on the web regarding what SATA cables are supported. Today we will be addressing those concerns by testing multiple SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 6Gb/s cables to see if there are any performance differences.
Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.
We provide:
Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money
Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting
Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP
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