3 ms·

Who cares about laptops and tablets? They already have fast ports. You already can put a real NVMe drive into a USB enclosure and get ridiculously fast external

Who cares about laptops and tablets? They already have fast ports. You already can put a real NVMe drive into a USB enclosure and get ridiculously fast external storage. This new form factor would be perfect for cameras that shoot RAW video or high-bandwidth video. Until recently you'd need to buy very expensive and fast SD cards or proprietary RED mags to be able to record high quality high resolution video. BMPCC4K was the first (very affordable) camera that allowed recording directly into a USB SSD.

pathartl 7y ago
Seeing as how most premium laptops today are using some sort of PCI-E storage... I would say professionals that are using their laptops as workstations care. This isn't an interconnect made for external use per se, but for replaceable storage. In the article it specifically is mentioned as a replacement for soldered BGA storage. The way the mechanism works (which is very similar to old full size SIM card slots on old feature phones) is meant to act as a more permanent socket than something like a spring loaded SD card slot or USB port. It's more akin to a CPU socket. For laptops and tablets this could be a huge move, partially because of the user-serviceable upgrade potential, but also because of data recovery. Instead of the flash chips and their controller being on the same board as the CPU, GPU, muxes, power management systems, etc, they can now fit in a secure, low profile and low footprint socket. Take newer MacBook Pros for instance. They have soldered on storage and no way to access that data if the logic board dies. Previously, Apple had outfit the board with a "lifeboat" connector that allows for data transfer from the soldered on storage (assuming it's still intact) without having a fully working board. Louis Rossmann, of course, went over this in a video just a couple days ago. He had a customer that sent a machine in that is a few-months-old MacBook Pro 13". It has a dead T2 chip which renders the entire logic board useless. There is no way (short of desoldering the flash chips and possibly putting it on a working donor board, but then you run into a whole slew of other issues) to recover data off of that machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9en4I-tjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9en4I-tjA
diabeetusman 7y ago
Of course, the RED mags that you're referring to just use normal SATA with the pins moved around.
- lostsock 7y ago
  For context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJXu4K1igg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJXu4K1igg
Ididntdothis 7y ago
What’s the power needs of an SSD vs an SD card?
- pathartl 7y ago
  A PCI-E based SSD will definitely require more power.
kalleboo 7y ago
Because having a USB drive hanging off the side of your laptop is a PITA, having to unmount it to disconnect before packing your laptop, etc. This new form factor changes nothing for cameras since cameras have proprietary storage for the sole reason of squeezing producers for more cash. RED mags just have cheap (not even high-end) M.2 SATA SSDs inside them, and the camera has a DRM check to ensure that it's one sold by them so you can't just swap it out for a higher capacity one. Why would they ever adopt an open standard when they can charge thousands of dollars for a proprietary one instead?

pathartl 7y ago

Seeing as how most premium laptops today are using some sort of PCI-E storage... I would say professionals that are using their laptops as workstations care. This isn't an interconnect made for external use per se, but for replaceable storage. In the article it specifically is mentioned as a replacement for soldered BGA storage. The way the mechanism works (which is very similar to old full size SIM card slots on old feature phones) is meant to act as a more permanent socket than something like a spring loaded SD card slot or USB port. It's more akin to a CPU socket. For laptops and tablets this could be a huge move, partially because of the user-serviceable upgrade potential, but also because of data recovery. Instead of the flash chips and their controller being on the same board as the CPU, GPU, muxes, power management systems, etc, they can now fit in a secure, low profile and low footprint socket. Take newer MacBook Pros for instance. They have soldered on storage and no way to access that data if the logic board dies. Previously, Apple had outfit the board with a "lifeboat" connector that allows for data transfer from the soldered on storage (assuming it's still intact) without having a fully working board. Louis Rossmann, of course, went over this in a video just a couple days ago. He had a customer that sent a machine in that is a few-months-old MacBook Pro 13". It has a dead T2 chip which renders the entire logic board useless. There is no way (short of desoldering the flash chips and possibly putting it on a working donor board, but then you run into a whole slew of other issues) to recover data off of that machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9en4I-tjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9en4I-tjA

diabeetusman 7y ago

Of course, the RED mags that you're referring to just use normal SATA with the pins moved around.

lostsock 7y ago
For context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJXu4K1igg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJXu4K1igg

Ididntdothis 7y ago

What’s the power needs of an SSD vs an SD card?

pathartl 7y ago
A PCI-E based SSD will definitely require more power.

kalleboo 7y ago

Because having a USB drive hanging off the side of your laptop is a PITA, having to unmount it to disconnect before packing your laptop, etc. This new form factor changes nothing for cameras since cameras have proprietary storage for the sole reason of squeezing producers for more cash. RED mags just have cheap (not even high-end) M.2 SATA SSDs inside them, and the camera has a DRM check to ensure that it's one sold by them so you can't just swap it out for a higher capacity one. Why would they ever adopt an open standard when they can charge thousands of dollars for a proprietary one instead?