Explaining SSDs: Form Factors, Interfaces & Technologies

welcome to another video

explaining

computers, this time I'm going to talk about these things, solid state drives or SSDs, specifically, I'm going to explain all the different

interfaces

and

form

factor

technologies

of SSDs, so let's get started for many years. Almost all computers stored their operating system programs and data on hard drives, with three and a half inch models being the most common in desktop computers, while two and a half inch drives were found in most laptops. half; However, today an increasing proportion of computers use an SSD instead of or in addition to a hard drive, SSDs store data on solid-state flash memory chips, making them faster, more energy efficient and more robust.

That said, the cost of storing data on an SSD is even higher per gigabyte than using a hard drive today. There are many different sizes or

form

factors

, the most common being two and a half inches and m.2, as we can see. Two and a half inch SSDs are the same size as two and a half inch hard drives and connect to a computer using a cable that plugs into a connector on the end of the drive and then the drive is mounted with screws, while m.2 drives are usually stored directly on a computer's motherboard and come in a variety of sizes that are expressed as a code, for example this is a 2280 m.2 ssd which means it has 22 millimeters wide and 80 millimeters long and this is a 2260 m.2 ssd, which is therefore 22 millimeters wide and 60 millimeters long.

Other possible dimensions for m.2 devices are 1630 2230 3030 2242 3042 and 2210, although not all are used for m.2 SSDs, when purchasing an m.2 SSD it is of course essential to get one that fits your motherboard, Although it's worth noting that many motherboard slots can accommodate various m.2 sizes, while two-and-a-half-inch m.2 SSDs are the most common, there are other form

factors

available, among them are some three-inch SSDs. inches, like the nimbus extra drive dc 100 with a capacity of 100 terabytes, this is currently the largest capacity SSD. on the market and is a very high-end business device priced at forty thousand dollars, also at the higher end of the market we find aic or add-in card ssd drives that plug directly into a pcie slot on a computer's motherboard .

They also come in different sizes and are usually hhh l, which means half height and half length, or fhhl, which means full height and half length. Examples include the Samsung PM1733 and the WD Black AN1500. Note that there are also pcie add-in card adapters that allow one or more m.2 SSDs to connect to a standard pcie slot. One last quite common factor if the older SSD form factor is msata. This was defined in 2011 before m.2 was specified in 2013 and can still be found on many laptops and other mobile devices. However, with all of that said today, if you're shopping for a new SSD, you'll most likely select a two and a half-inch form factor drive or an M.2 drive.

SSDs are available with a variety of different

interfaces

, with the two most common. being sata and pcie, mvme sata stands for advanced serial technology accessory and offers a maximum data transfer speed of around 550 megabytes per second, while pcie stands for peripheral component interconnect express with nvme or non-volatile memory express which is a Standard for connecting SSD via PCIe. You may see SSDs labeled as having a pcie interface, an nvme interface, or a pcie nvme interface, but these days these all refer to the same thing: maximum data transfer speeds for nvme

ssds

or up to 7000 megabytes per second for newer drives connected to computers with a pcie 4.0 interface it is now very important to appreciate that the form factor of an ssd does not determine its interface very often i read comments here on youtube saying things like m.2

ssds

are better than two and a half inch ssds because m.2 drives are faster and this is not always true for boot m.2 SSDs which may have a sata or nvme interface so for example here this m drive .2 western digital is an nvme drive, but this transcendent drive is a sata drive and therefore runs at the same speed as most two and a half inch drives that have a satter interface.

That said, there are two and a half inch drives that have a pcie nvme interface known in this context as u.2, the connectors on sata and udot two two and a half inch SSDs look quite similar, but they are not identical, as This chart shows examples of two and a half inch SSDs with the PCIe NVME U.2 interface including the Kingston DC1000M and the WD Gold Enterprise Class NVME SSD. It's also worth noting that some two-and-a-half-inch enterprise SSDs come with a serially connected scussy or sas interface that can provide data transfer speeds of up to 1,200 megabytes per second or twice that of the Saturn.

Now, because SSDs with the same form factor can have different interfaces, it becomes very important. to buy the right drive for your system if you want it to fit and work properly when purchasing a two and a half inch SSD you should have no problems in practice as all consumer drives have a Saturn interface and u.2 connectors and those are rare. So on most motherboards you are very unlikely to buy a two and a half inch u.2 or sas SSD by accident. The same, however, is unfortunately not the case when it comes to m.2 drives and there have been many reported cases of people purchasing an nvme. m.2 ssd where you need a NASA one and vice versa, so it's incredibly important to check what type of m.2 ssd your system supports nowadays, most new motherboards have slots that work with sata and nvme drives m.2, but there are still many older desktop and laptop motherboards, but they are sata or nvme only.

The nvme and sata m.2 drives look identical and I would like to point out that the different lengths of these drives have nothing to do with their different interfaces, it is also important. Please note that all m.2 devices have slots or keys to prevent them from being installed in the wrong type of m.2 slot, specifically m.2 SSDs can be b keys, m keys or both here, like all nvme drives moderns, this wd black is keyed m while like most sata drives, this transcender is keyed b and m, finally just to make sure everything is as clear as possible.

Let's finish this segment with a table indicating the different interfaces available in different SSD form factors, as we can see 2.5-inch SSD. can have sata u.2 nvme or sas interface while m.2 drives can be sata or mvm and meanwhile pcie add-on ssd cards are only pcie mvme while msata or mini satur ssds are only satur As the name suggests, most SSDs. store data on its flash memory chips using NAND logic gates. Two

technologies

called floating gate and flash charge trap are commonly used in both to write or program data a voltage is applied to move electrons to a floating gate or charge trap layer the presence of These electrons change the resistance between the source and electrodes. membrane cell drain and this can be measured by passing a current between them, allowing data to be read from the cell to clear the cell.

A voltage or field is applied to remove electrons from a floating element. gate or charge trap layer, however, repeated operations of the program arrays weaken the material the cell is made of, resulting in electrons escaping from a floating gate or being retained in the charge trap layer after a certain number of program arrays or pe cycles, so it becomes impossible for the cell to operate reliably, the practical implication is that all SSDs can only sustain a limited number of correct data operations before failing . The technology in early SSDs was called single-level cell or slc and stored only one bit of data per memory cell.

Therefore, it was only necessary to maintain two possible states: completely programmed or completely erased; However, today most SSDs store multiple bits of data per memory cell to increase the capacity of the drive at a reduced cost, inevitably this reduces the number of program array cycles and the SSD can operate more efficiently. reliable. is maintained and also causes the drive to run slower, so when purchasing an SSD you may want to consider how many bits of data it stores per memory sale as this will determine its speed and life expectancy after the SLC SSDs come to multi-level cell or MLC drives. which store two bits of data per memory cell, thus requiring the cell to reliably distinguish four programmed states, then came the triple level cells or TLC SSD, followed by the quad level cells or QLC.

Today, manufacturers including Intel and Toshiba are working on pentalevel cells or plc-ssds, although these have not yet reached the market, the programmer's stated life expectancy for any individual ssd varies significantly, but as a guide slc units can support up to approximately one hundred thousand mlc programmer stroke cycles, around 3000 for consumer units, tlc somewhere between 500 and 2000 and qlc between 300 and 1000, although these numbers may seem very low, It should be remembered that most users only write or rewrite data to a very small percentage of their drive daily and therefore even QLC drives and future PLC drives will work reliably for many years.

For the vast majority of users who have just explained slc mlc tlc qlc and plc, I thought it was important to finish by saying a few words about how Samsung chooses to label its units and their technical specifications because it can make things a little confusing and this This It's because Samsung labels every drive it has as mlc and that indicates the total number of bits stored in the cell, so for example here is a Samsung Pro drive that is mlc, which Samsung labels as 2-bit mlc. That's not too confusing, but here I have a Samsung Cuvo unit which is qlc, but Samsung labels this as four-bit mlc four-bit multilevel cell, which I assume is technically correct if you just use multilevel cell to mean multi-any. number when it defines a number of bits stored next to it. but in the world where we've generally understood mlc to mean two bits per cell, that can confuse things a bit, so here's a little table just to explain what Samsung does when mlc is two 2-bit mlcs, tlc and mlc 3 bit qlc. being 4-bit mlc and presumably over time plc will be labeled on samsung drives as 5-bit mlc over the last decade ssds have helped make laptops lighter and sturdier and have longer battery life , as well as allowing computers of all types to boot more quickly and to benefit more generally from faster storage technology.

If you want to know more about the different types of computer hardware, you can watch some of the other videos on this channel, which include explanations about RAM and pcie slots, but that's it. another video, if you liked what you've seen here, hit the like button, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe and I hope to talk to you again very soon.