Thursday, May 26th 2022
M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSDs Set to Increase to 25 mm in Width, Might Not Fit Older Motherboards
NVMe SSDs based on the M.2 form factor come in several different lengths today, ranging from 30 to 110 mm, although the 30 mm drives are rare and the 110 mm drives have so far been reserved for the server space. However, they've all had one thing in common, the 22 mm width, as otherwise there might be issues in terms of fitting the drives, especially in notebooks. However, it appears that the PCI-SIG snuck in a wider, 25 mm option for M.2 SDDs at the end of 2020, but seemingly forgot to mention it to anyone. The only reason we even noticed, was because Gigabyte listed its upcoming X670 and X670E motherboards as having support for 25110 SSD's, where you'd expect to see support for 2280 or 22110 drives.
An extra 3 mm in width might not sound like much, but many M.2 drives seem to be somewhat space constrained, mainly with regards to the passive components and the power regulation. It also seems like this is in preparation for PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives, where the host controller is expected to run hotter, even though it might not be as bad as initially expected. Regardless, it seems like motherboard makers are now making space for this slightly wider M.2 form factor, as well as implementing suitable cooling solutions to match. Whether we'll see drives using this slightly wider form factor or not, is still up in the air and one reason why the SSD manufacturers might choose not to go wider, is because new drives might not fit in older motherboards and laptops, if the clearance is too small.
Source:
via @hms1193
An extra 3 mm in width might not sound like much, but many M.2 drives seem to be somewhat space constrained, mainly with regards to the passive components and the power regulation. It also seems like this is in preparation for PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives, where the host controller is expected to run hotter, even though it might not be as bad as initially expected. Regardless, it seems like motherboard makers are now making space for this slightly wider M.2 form factor, as well as implementing suitable cooling solutions to match. Whether we'll see drives using this slightly wider form factor or not, is still up in the air and one reason why the SSD manufacturers might choose not to go wider, is because new drives might not fit in older motherboards and laptops, if the clearance is too small.
49 Comments on M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSDs Set to Increase to 25 mm in Width, Might Not Fit Older Motherboards
U.2 never took off and this is much cheaper, both in terms of connectors and the drives themselves.
Also no need for any cables to connect with.
Technically we need a new PC form factor, where the M.2 drives get a dedicated place on the motherboard, but that's unlikely to happen.
However, it adds the additional cost of the expansion card, over just plonking the M.2 slots straight on the motherboard.
Quick survey, who here has purchased a PCIe 4.0 drive just to use on a 3.0 capable system WHILE having absolutely zero plans to upgrade to a 4.0 capable motherboard sometime in the future?
On another note, I'd like to see a SATAIV release with at least 12Gb/s (basically subsuming the place of SAS). There's still a market for cheap SATA SSDs, and this would extend the life of SATA
Right now the only 110 mm long drives do indeed appear to be for enterprise use, but that might very well change in the future.
The extra length makes sense for very obvious reasons, but are PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers going to be so hot that heasinks have to get wider? If that's the case, the design of the heatsinks is the low-hanging fruit; most of them are just cheap slabs of aluminium that lack proper fins and have pitifully low surface area.
I had a plan to use it in my next build.
So around twice that of a SATA cable at retail...