News Toshiba shows off new, smaller NVME format at Memory Summit

Link to andandtech.

"The XFMEXPRESS card size is 18x14x1.4mm, slightly larger and thicker than a microSD card. It mounts into a latching socket that increases the footprint up to 22.2x17.75x2.2mm. For comparison, the standard sizes for BGA SSDs are 11.5x13mm with a PCIe x2 interface or 16x20mm with a PCIe x4 interface."

 

[vluft]

That seems like it's going to need a definitely non-zero amount of cooling, especially PCIe 4.0 versions

 

[Choidebu]

I like that it made ssd installation toolless as compared to current nvme that you need to fiddle with miniscule screw and sometimes standoff that is so easy to lose too.

But given current gen controllers' tendency to overheat, I can't help but think reducing footprint is not the way to go. Looks like it is designed with heat dissipation in mind indeed, with the metal cover, but it is still less surface area to put a heatsink on.

 

[Valantar]

That seems like it's going to need a definitely non-zero amount of cooling, especially PCIe 4.0 versions

I like that it made ssd installation toolless as compared to current nvme that you need to fiddle with miniscule screw and sometimes standoff that is so easy to lose too.

But given current gen controllers' tendency to overheat, I can't help but think reducing footprint is not the way to go. Looks like it is designed with heat dissipation in mind indeed, with the metal cover, but it is still less surface area to put a heatsink on.

While any flash device needs cooling (even SD cards get hot, after all), I think you're reading a bit too much into these being spoken of as "NVMe SSDs". These are roughly the size of MicroSD cards, and will definitely not reach performance levels anywhere close to modern PCIe 3.0 x4 drives outside of short bursts - those have controllers bigger than the footprint of this whole package, plus DRAM chips and heaps of flash. These drives are designed to replace low-end DRAMless BGA SSDs, which are definitely not in the 5W range like most large SSDs. That being said these will still need cooling - it's even mentioned that the retention mechanism is designed to allow for heat dissipation, which sounds overly optimistic IMO (though it's not difficult to see a laptop design sticking the end of a heatpipe on top of one of these with a thermal pad). But the products this is meant to replace are soldered-on packages with zero cooling whatsoever. And ultimately the size of the package dictates how power hungry a class of hardware you can fit inside.

 

[Choidebu]

Ah I see it now. There's an anandtech link I didn't notice before.

But if it is so, then I don't have much hope this will reach retail products. They won't start selling SSDs at this ff to end users by the chip now, will they? It'll probably limited to OEMs and embedded developers.