Will PCIe Flash Become Common In Laptops, Desktops? 372
Lucas123 writes "With Apple announcing that it is now using PCIe flash in its MacBook Air and it has plans to offer it in its Mac Pro later this year, some are speculating that the high-speed peripheral interface may become the standard for higher-end consumer laptops and workplace systems. 'It's coming,' said Joseph Unsworth, research vice president for NAND Flash & SSD at Gartner. The Mac Pro with PCIe flash is expected to exceed 1GB/sec throughput, twice the speed of SATA III SSDs. Apple claims the new MacBook Mini got a 45% performance boost from its PCIe flash. AnandTech has the Air clocked in at 800MB/s. Next year, Intel and Plextor are expected to begin shipping PCIe cards based on the new NGFF specification. Plextor's NGFF SSD measures just 22mm by 44mm in size and connects to a computer's motherboard through a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface. Those cards are smaller than today's half-height expansion cards and offer 770MB/s read and 550MB/s write speeds."
Re:Current generation Flash lasts about as long (Score:4, Informative)
Not Seagate (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248015 [newegg.com]
Not Crucial (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443 [newegg.com]
Not OCZ (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791 [newegg.com]
Not Intel (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167154 [newegg.com]
New MP isn't great for big jobs (Score:5, Informative)
The new Mac Pro isn't that great -- and I've been waiting for it. Really had my hopes up.
Flash drives seem to be characterized by very high failure rates. Changing the drive? Unclear this is a user operation. All real drives -- the ones you use for your data -- would have to be external bricks. Whereas standard HD's for the current design go in and out trivially. It's wonderful. Four of 'em.
External drives? External graphics? (3 display max it would seem unless you have external boxes.... yech) Nah.
Best thing right now seems to be the last generation of the big box. 12 cores, 12 more semi-competent hyperthreads, holds four drives, can push six monitors, RAM is (user!) upgradable...
And they finally fixed OSX so it handles multiple monitors correctly, fixed the broken menu paradigm, fixed how full screen apps work... perfect.
The mac pro.... unless there are some real differences between what they say they're making and what they actually make, I think it's the big box for me. My older 8-core can live in the ham shack doing SDR and digi-mode duty. :)
This way I know I can do the big jobs, and without littering my workspace, which I am quite particular about, with bricks and cables. I *really* don't understand what they were thinking.
Re:New MP isn't great for big jobs (Score:5, Informative)
According to some people att WWDC replacing a "drive" is merely a matter of taking the cover off and popping it out of the PCIe slot. Plugging the new one in and closing the cover. The units they have on display features two such slots. Seams pretty OK to me.
RAM is definitly user upgradeable. Four slots for DDR3 1866 MHz ECC. Works like any other RAM slot.
It should be possible to replace the GPUs as well. The only question seams to be that it's unclear how many GPUs will be availble that fits within the form factor.
Re:Ride the Thunder (Score:4, Informative)
No, no you couldn't, and you certainly couldn't do both of these things at once. Thunderbolt 2 is still inadequate for connecting a GPU, it will not keep up with modern graphics cards. Not surprised to see you of all people get this wrong.