NezSez writes regarding an article in extremetech:
"SATA Express is SATA and PCIe over cables (preserving backwards compatibility) and NVMe is the next improvement of AHCI with much lower latencies by using the PCIe bus/lanes. Both have been developed to improve access to SSD's which have their own processors on-board and can communicate quicker than mechanical drives. The specifications look good (up to 4 times faster and can scale with improvements of PCIe) but analysts suspect it will only be adopted for small form factors.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday March 17 2014, @02:28PM
Can't be sure but I think he was thinking about plugging the ssd straight onto the mobo kind of like a video card.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by guises on Monday March 17 2014, @02:52PM
Doubtless he was, but you lose flexibility that way and only gain a tiny impedance advantage. I can't imagine that has a significant impact on speed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Monday March 17 2014, @03:22PM
I wasn't thinking so much about impedance as the drastic reduction in the conductor length (millimeters instead of meters) reducing signal noise.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Monday March 17 2014, @03:19PM
I was visualizing another row of slots very much like SIMM slots on the motherboard, effectively segregating the market into performance storage (solid state) and volume storage (mechanical). I'm assuming there would also be cartridge-style hot-swappable SSD units as well, much the same way the SATA backplane layout has enabled standard internal drives to be hot mounted into bays without the use of caddies.