3.2 tb ssd pci card.
Opinions?
z
Wait until you see the price… You can probably buy an entire desktop system with dozens of terabytes of conventional drives for what they’ll charge for this thing.
Wow!
{‘-’}
Anyone understand the read write specs_viz a viz Cubase?
Interesting advancement! This almost blurs the line between RAM & Hard Drives. Maybe one day they will become one in the same 
As with all technology, the price will come down when it becomes the standard.
I don’t know how much more speed is ‘actually useful’ of this PCIe based card, compared to the already maxed out SATAIII, but at least a currentSSD can be easily & readily connected to existing interfaces. But holy cow, the capacity of this thing!
And is PCIe the ‘fastest’ connection of all? I don’t know how many PCIe slots are typical on current motherboards, maybe more will be needed in future boards, unless PCIe expander boxes can be used instead of taking up a space.
I wonder if or when the standard ATX form factor will have to become obsolete to accommodate fitting in all the future interfaces changes
Perhaps I have this wrong but I heard on a podcast that
Intel’s ThunderBolt’ connection is just another version of PCIe.
Is this true?
And if so, perhaps this tech could one day also come in that form as well.
Future looks brite!!!
{‘-’}
No, that’s not it. What you might have heard is that there are TB expansion boxes that connect to a computer via PCIe interface. Or Thunderbolt PCIe cards, which allow a computer without TB to use TB peripherals. If you don’t have PCIe slots, you can’t use this drive. And after what Apple did to Samsung, I really don’t expect them to make this technology available to MacPro users any soon… 
I guess if Samsung were Apple, they would have sued them for copying the smaller-form tablet, the larger smartphone and the phablet. So really, who’s copying who?
I bet this thing comes in at under £300 UK…
Can anyone do the numbers how much faster is it?
Z
Until the read-writes are in the ns, we still have a long way to go.
Once all memory is unified, OSs would have to be new or their kernels and utilities completely rewritten from the ground up, because:
a) they have separate functions for memory and IO, with secondary (slow non-volatile) memory being accessed by the latter.
b) programs would no longer be installed then run later - they would be installed as running in a paused state, which means that your DAW and samples, along with EVERY other program, would be always waiting for the record/play button. This is sort of like the old Terminate and Stay Ready (TSR) utilities. As you can imagine, almost all programs would require a rewrite to be compatible.
Thunderbolt is the repackaging of the several lanes of PCIe with DisplayPort into a common miniDisplayPort-like (mDP) cable, which is why the PCIe cages can work (no protocol translation). Intel cites it as Dual-protocol.
So, while it is another version of PCIe, it is so significantly different that it needs to be considered in relation to what supports it for itself.
A quick calculation: 10 writes per day x 365 days per year x 5 years =~ 18K, which almost double the 10K write per block lifecycle limit of MLC (SLC has 100K, but is much more expensive).
That means they should last ages, doubling the figures I gave in my post of estimated lifetimes.
Generally:
Pros
a) Large capacity, so no need to use hard links or whatever to fit all your libraries.
b) Large transfer rate =~ three times a SATA III, so should handle a lot of tracks and samples.
Cons
a) Single source of failure = one out, all out, which makes for a big restore job once it is replaced.
b) Transfer rates only a few times SATA III SSD, which means that if heavily using several SSDs now, it may not offer than much improvement.
Until their prices are announced, we will have to wait to see how they compare with SATA III SSDs for $/performance.
However, the major issue is of the single point of failure and how debilitating that may be for a business.
Typically, for DAWs, SATA III SSDs are loaded up according to their intended use, namely:
- OS and programs
- Projects and audio, and other data
- Samples
etc.
In business, where downtime time means revenue lost, the best way to minimise downtime for the studio with the SSDs, is to keep backups by:
- OS = System backup to NAS, though probably restored to another SSD overnight for quick replacement.
- Projects = Mirror files periodically to NAS, but preferably also another data SSD for quick replacement.
- Samples = duplicate SSDs for immediate swap.
While the first two may involve some time for replacement, sample drives can be replaced almost immediately without power-down if easily accessible. Same with project/data drives if mirrored spare. The OS one is likely to take the most time. For super quick replacement on Windows, the drive letters on the replacements would need to be set to the current ones.
While the same could be done with a PCIe drive, it would have to be several times more reliable than any one SATA III drive to match the overall reliability, and the downtime is the worst case of the three above plus some.
Also, SATA III drives are easy to replace if using a multi-drive 5.25" cage (sample drives without power-down), whereas a PCIe requires power-down and opening up the box.
For hobbyists who have the time to spare (that’s a logical and, not an implication!), failures are PITA and it takes the time it takes, depending upon one’s backup strategy.
I would suggest the best strategy if one is using such a drive, is to use a normal SSD for the OS and programs, and the PCIe for everything else, with an up-to-date mirrored duplicate of it, of course.
There you go, crushing imagination of ignorance, with reality from knowledge 
As you say further down, with this new Samsung PCIe memory drive coming, and at an unknown price, is susceptible to one single failure…not good. With that, it sounds like it may be best to keep those functions separate, even though they may use the same technology (?) just as long as this won’t be a limiting factor. somewhere.
But how about this… somehow-someway make it so that MEMORY, more or less as we know it to be now, comes from cards like this, whether PCIe based or otherwise…meaning, instead of a stick with limited GB of total memory, come in a large card such as this PCIe card (or other) and have such large capacities as the Samsung…?
I am not too techy, but, I would probably leave the operating system on a separate SSD, then back up the PCIe drive to a conventional HDD (cheap). Then for any critical files (like project files) have them mirror to either the cloud, or some other system on a network outside of the PC, using some back up app.
If this is the first of many, assuming right price then times they are a changing…
Z
^^^ With that, I find that with almost ALL THINGS in life, (and I don’t mean just computers) it’s better to divide tasks up among ‘individual’ components. I live by this concept, and allows loads of any task to be shared, while not pushing a single component too hard, provide redundancy, back up & longevity.
Mama say, “never put all YO eggs in ONE basketstess boyee”
Mahalo P,
and thanks soo much for the clarification/info.
Sending much aloha.
{‘-’}
^ Yes, Pat is quite the answer man 
