This whole standard is a waste of time, imo. If you really want to get a much faster and swappable system, go for LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2. And if you need it for a PC that doesn't have Thunderbolt 2, buy a PCI card, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Sbuy-Thunderbolt-2-Pcie-1-Port-Card/dp/B00J1EQDV6/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1401378699&sr=8-16&keywords=thunderbolt pci
Granted, it is more expensive, but you get the fastest swappable + portable storage, and not some +10% on paper nonsense that can be -10% in reality compared to Sata-III.
Well, you trade in performance + portability for a discount in price. And you get a system that's not really any better than SATA-III SSD-s. In other worlds, you get what you pay for. The idea of M.2 was to improve performance, which we haven't seen yet, and given how little boost it promises, may never see it. That's why I called it a waste of time, referring to the whole M.2 idea for the PC-s.hehe the LaCie Little Big Disk uses socket M.2 SSDs It's expensive and nowhere near as practical as just buying an M.2 SSD and sticking it in an M.2 socket or using a PCIe adapter.
This is the same thing you said when we published the OCZ RevoDrive 350 review and it didn't make sense then. It is far more practical to boot Windows from the native PCIe interface than TB.
LaCie don't make super fast SSDs you or I can't just buy, they use SSDs from Intel, Samsung and so on that we can purcahse. There is no magic here and they use the same standards that you deemed "a waste of time".
Your suggestion to spend $160 on a Thunderbolt card just to support the LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 which costs $1600 and uses an SSD that are supported by a cheap PCIe adapter or Z97 motherboard is bonkers!
It would actually be cheaper to build a new computer.
Asrock Z97 Extreme6 = $170 (offers a pair of M.2 sockets)
Crucial M550 M.2 = $480
Crucial M550 M.2 = $480
Total = $1130
With the almost $500 left over lets by a new CPU, Haswell-refresh Intel Core i7-4790 done ($315). Buy a nice $150 dinner to celebrate your new system
There is still a desire for mass storage.2) No need for HDD bays...
This is not a replacement for CD/DVD/BR drives, so 5.25 drive bays will still be needed.With no need for a DVD drive anymore
Well, you trade in performance + portability for a discount in price. And you get a system that's not really any better than SATA-III SSD-s. In other worlds, you get what you pay for. The idea of M.2 was to improve performance, which we haven't seen yet, and given how little boost it promises, may never see it. That's why I called it a waste of time, referring to the whole M.2 idea for the PC-s.
I can, but 99% of users either can't or just won't And I'm trying to look at things from a general perspective.Why can't you just buy two of the same M.2 SSDs and put them in your system using RAID0?
Some M.2 form factor SSD are still SATA-3. These are keyed with 2 slots in the edge card connector.
The M.2 that LaCie are using are 2-lane PCIe and can utilize higher bandwidth. SSD controllers today still can't utilize the full bandwidth available.
The LaCie LBDV2 can deliver up to 1.3 Gigabyte per second thruput.