Monday, May 30th 2016
GALAX Hall of Fame U.2, M.2, and PCIe SSDs Spied
GALAX is preparing an onslaught for the enthusiast consumer SSD space, with the new Hall of Fame (HOF) NVMe Series. Spanning three key enthusiast form-factors, namely 2.5-inch with 32 Gb/s U.2 interface; 32 Gb/s M.2, and PCI-Express 3.0 x4 add-on card; the lineup sees the company use a very powerful custom controller to churn up sequential transfer rates of 2.5 TB/s. To begin with, the 2.5-inch with U.2 form-factor drive comes in 512 GB and 1 TB sizes, offering speeds of up to 2500 MB/s reads, with 1200 MB/s writes, 300,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and 250,000 IOPS 4K random writes.
The M.2 lineup comes in two module lengths - the more common M.2-2280, and the longer M.2-22110. The M.2-2280 drive comes in capacities of up to 512 GB, and offers slightly higher write-performance of up to 1350 MB/s, while the M.2-22110 drive comes in capacities of up to 1 TB, offering the same transfer rates as the U.2 drives. Then there's the PCIe add-on card form-factor drive for those without either M.2 or U.2, which comes in sizes of up to 1 TB, and has the same performance as the U.2 drives. There's also a 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s drive in this series, but its specs don't hold our attention for too long.
The M.2 lineup comes in two module lengths - the more common M.2-2280, and the longer M.2-22110. The M.2-2280 drive comes in capacities of up to 512 GB, and offers slightly higher write-performance of up to 1350 MB/s, while the M.2-22110 drive comes in capacities of up to 1 TB, offering the same transfer rates as the U.2 drives. Then there's the PCIe add-on card form-factor drive for those without either M.2 or U.2, which comes in sizes of up to 1 TB, and has the same performance as the U.2 drives. There's also a 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s drive in this series, but its specs don't hold our attention for too long.