Netbook SSDs get a standard connector
Universal SATA connectors for SSD’s
Although netbooks have proven to be very popular one of the biggest complaints is the ability to upgrade the SSD’s found in many of the models. Most manufacturers have proprietary connectors which force owners into a corner. For any of you that own a netbook, it would be fair to say that they’re happy to buy only manufacturer certified components when upgrading. There is one issue; price. Proprietary usually means a higher price tag. I know this isn’t always the case, so don’t start shouting. If, like me, you have a number of spare disks lying around you’ll know how frustrating it can be when you find that old drive from your Eee PC doesn’t simply plugin to your Acer netbook.
Upgraders, your SSD upgrade headaches could soon be over. The SATA International Organization have launched a long overdue connector standard for laptop and netbook makers during the the Intel Developer Forum, today.
This new standard will be called mini-SATA (mSATA if you want to sound really cool in front of you boss/wife/friends). The standard will use the same Mini PCI Express connector as many existing PCIe SSDs but current developments suggest the standard will be used for SSD’s of 64GB and smaller.
Transfer rates up to 3Gb/s will be supported by mSATA. A number of big names have added their backing to mSATA (Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, SANDisk)so there’s a very good chance it will become a universal standard in a relatively short space of time and Toshiba have announced that their 30GB and 62GB SSD’s will support speeds of 180Mbps (read) and 50Mbps (write). All good news for anyone that wants to carry out their own upgrades now all we need is to see the standard connector support hitting our local computer stores.
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