As the computer market moves to smaller and smaller form factors the need to decrease the foot print of storage devices is growing. The problem that many manufacturers face is that a reduction in component size has traditionally meant a reduction in performance. This is where technologies like mSATA and M.2 SATA (or M.2 PCIe) come into play. Each of these has a benefit in terms of size and also performance. With mSATA you can maintain close to the same performance that you have with traditional SATA (with the right components), but there are limitations on which motherboards and even mobile devices support this. Now with M.2 (also called M Key) SATA and PCIe devices we are seeing a number of motherboard makers will support for them right out of the box. Because of this interest in these new devices has grown. Today we are taking a look at the first one to hit our lab: the Kingston SM22080S3/120G M.2 SATA drive.
Value -Value is another very subjective topic. What is expensive to some might be a deal to others. You can look at this topic in multiple ways. One is raw price and the other is what you get for the money. Each is accurate and both are correct ways to look at price/value. We tend to look at features, performance and real-property when we discuss value. However, we also take into account the raw cash cost of the item. We found the Kingston 120GB SM22080S3 online for anywhere between $89 and $130 depending on the e-tailer we looked at. This gives it a pretty good price range if you grab it for around $90. You will need a motherboard or system that supports M.2 in SATA which might be a little more difficult. We found that many new motherboards only support PCIe flavors of M.2 drives which is something of a pain. Digging up a motherboard with real support for M.2 SATA might change the actual cost of having one of these drives in your system.
Conclusion -The M.2 SATA is an interesting product with some very nice features that play into the consumer market. In looking at the performance for non-compressed data we find that these drives should be excellent for multi-media based systems. In other words, just about every consumer computer on the planet could make use of an SSD with DRAM caching. It also allows manufacturers to build smaller systems and maintain the same level of performance that you get from a regular SATA drive. The Kingston SM22080S3 is an excellent example of what can be done with this form factor. Again, you might have to do some looking to find a board that will work with it, but the performance is certainly going to be there when you do. The price is also very good considering this is a newer form factor. We are impressed with the SATA flavor of the M.2 form factor and honestly can’t wait to see what the PCie versions will bring to the table once they are more prevalent. For now, if you have an M.2 SATA port on your new motherboard then you might want to think about picking up a Kingston SM22080S3 drive in either 120GB or 240GB. It would make a great boot or caching drive.
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