
Samsung Demos Its First BGA SSD: 1500 MB/s Read Speed and Tiny Package - desdiv
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10166/samsung-demos-its-first-bga-ssd
======
nl
I have just built a PC with a M.2 Samsung 950 Pro on a Z170 motherboard (make
sure you get the Z170 so the M.2 slot can use 4 PCI-E channels).

The performance of this thing is insane. Ars benchmarked it at 2600MB/s read,
1500MB/s write for sequential data[1]. Most SSDs benchmark at less than 600
MB/s[2].

By comparison, a RAM Disk gets ~6000MB/s on the
[https://hardforum.com/threads/quad-channel-ram-disk-
benchmar...](https://hardforum.com/threads/quad-channel-ram-disk-benchmark-
with-crstal-diskmark.1842437/same) benchmark.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/950-pro-review-
samsun...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/950-pro-review-samsungs-
first-pcie-m-2-nvme-ssd-is-an-absolute-monster/)

[2] [http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/samsung-850-evo-ssd-
rev...](http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/samsung-850-evo-ssd-
review,13.html)

[3] [https://hardforum.com/threads/quad-channel-ram-disk-
benchmar...](https://hardforum.com/threads/quad-channel-ram-disk-benchmark-
with-crstal-diskmark.1842437/)

~~~
philipov
What operating system do you use? I am trying to install windows 7 on those
exact specs (M.2 Samsung 950 Pro on Z170 motherboard, ASRock Extreme6+), and
I'm having trouble getting it to either recognize the M.2 slot during install,
or partition an alternate SATA Samsung 850 EVO SSD to clone from. Did you have
similar difficulties?

~~~
ghshephard
I attempted to install the exact same card (M.2 Samsung 950 Pro) into a
NUC5I7RYH, as well as a backup SATA (Seagate 1TB Laptop Gaming SSHD (Solid
State Hybrid Drive) SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 2.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive
(ST1000LM014)) - Neither one of them worked with Windows 7 out of the gate,
and I ended spending a 4-6 hour odyssey of googling BIOS upgrades, Firmware
Upgrades, and downloading various and sundry windows drivers (my final count
was around 8-10 before all was said and done).

Ironically, we thought that Windows 7 would have had better support - but, as
it turns out, for Circa 2H2015+ hardware, it's probably not a great platform.
Here's hoping that Windows 10 stabilizes for a few years, and all the vendors
agree to support that platform....

~~~
dogma1138
There is Windows update for 7/2008r2 which adds NVME support you need to cook
it into the image.

Use this guide [http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/guide-installing-
win...](http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/guide-installing-windows-7-on-
an-nvme-ssd-from-a-usb-3-0-thumbdrive.783921/) It worked for me. Also this :)
[http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global/file/insight/201...](http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global/file/insight/2015/08/NVMeSSD_User_Installation_Guide_whitepaper-0.pdf)

I have a windows 2008R2 box at home running on a 950pro.

------
Certified
I used to repair seismic nodes as part of my job. BGAs had the highest failure
rate in high shock and temperature cycling environments by far. I find it
worrying that so many chips are being designed with BGA. All it takes is one
ball disconnect and you have a useless device without an expensive solder
reflow. It seems like a really good way to design a device to have to be
replaced after 5-10 years...

~~~
akavel
Anybody can explain what are "seismic nodes"? I tried googling it, as well as
"repair seismic nodes", but to no apparent success

~~~
gruez
Probably earthquake monitoring equipment

~~~
watersb
Petroleum companies search for oil via seismic analysis.

------
sambe
People are saying it being soldered down is a big disadvantage but I'm not
following. The article says that M.2 spec will be available with PCIe or SATA
interfaces and there is a photo of a Toshiba version on what looks like a
small PCIe card. Aren't these the same as buying an existing card-based SSD?

If not, what is the relationship between all these interface types? Are they
intended to be soldered onto the motherboard?

~~~
LeonM
It mostly applies for laptops and other portable devices.

Manufacturers may decide to solder the SSD directly to the motherboard, like
Apple currently does with RAM on their laptop computers. This is beneficial to
the manufacturer because it's more compact, less chance of mechanical failure,
easier to assemble (pick&place instead of humans), lower price etc. In short:
it's very attractive for manufacturers.

For consumers this is worrying though, as with the RAM on Apple laptops:

\- You cannot replace a failed SSD, you need to replace the entire motherboard

\- You cannot upgrade the SSD, so you have to accept the ridiculous price
stepup when ordering the laptop (i.e. the 200 dollar price bump to get 8GB
extra RAM on a macbook pro)

\- Laptop is less valuable when trying to sell it on after a couple of years,
because the storage size will be low compared to new SSD's.

~~~
rayiner
On the last point: storage sizes on laptops have plateaued. I've got a 256gb
SSD in my three year old rMBP, and can't see any reason why I'd want more in
my new one.

~~~
ghshephard
Video. Particularly if you do any HD editing, let alone 4K, you can burn
through 100s of gigabytes very quickly.

~~~
Nullabillity
And games. Just my 280GiB Windows partition on my laptop is hovering around
90% full constantly.

Unless you only use the computer for editing text then storage requirements
are growing quicker than ever.

------
WatchDog
Will the 512GB model be on the same size package? That would be pretty dense.
I am still waiting for Samsung to release the 1TB version of their 950 Pro,
which comes on a much larger M.2 80mm form factor.

~~~
kyrra
It's slight, but there are already possible thermal throttling issues with the
512GB 950 Pro[0]. I'm wondering if that becomes more pronounced as they try to
pack 1TB onto an m.2 form factor.

[0] (search for "thermal" on this page and through the article):
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/9702/samsung-950-pro-ssd-
revie...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9702/samsung-950-pro-ssd-
review-256gb-512gb/3)

~~~
WatchDog
For my use-case(desktop PC), it shouldnt really matter much. Access would be
bursty so it shouldnt really heat up too much, plus there should be adequate
ventilation. I mean I probably don’t need the performance of a NVMe SSD at
all, but I like to have the best.

~~~
kyrra
[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-
drives/so...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/solid-
state-drives-dc-p3608-series.html)

May as well go with PCIe cards then. :)

~~~
WatchDog
Well I have one of these N1 cases[0] which takes a mini-itx board. The
graphics card will be taking up the only full size pci-express slot, so I am
looking at M.2 ssds.

[0] [https://www.ncases.com/](https://www.ncases.com/)

------
yoz-y
Is there a reason to not put this into smartphones?

~~~
thesehands
I suspect data carriers would prefer you spend your dollars streaming rather
than consuming stored media on the handset.

~~~
yoz-y
Hehe, that might well be but I wonder. At least in France I suspect that
carriers would rather people did not use all of their allocated BW (you can
get 50GB on LTE for 20 Euros per month).

~~~
merpnderp
In rural US I pay 45 Euros for 30GB/month. In the city I get about 1mb/s, but
in the countryside I can get 40mb/s.

~~~
haneefmubarak
Do you mean $45 or ~$50 (45 euros)?

Also, which cellular provider here in the states is offering 30 GB / month at
that low of a price (do they have special rural pricing or something)?

------
LeonM
One of these in 128Gb (16GiB) might be cheap enough to be stacked below the
RAM/CPU combo on the next raspberry Pi. That would significantly increase the
performance and reliability of an rPi, I'd love to see that!

~~~
Nullabillity
I'd hate to see that, one of the big benefits of the RPi is that everything
stateful is on the memory card.

~~~
jbverschoor
Yeah, until you actually start using the sdcard. Sd cards and usb sticks
corrupt in no time somehow

~~~
haneefmubarak
Personally, I've found that external drives only tend to corrupt if you use
them as rw boot drives or if you don't unmount and sync them properly (safe
remove / eject) on every use.

So yeah, the RasPi idea of having using those to boot might corrupt quickly,
but if you use them for a camera or just transferring files between computers,
you should be safe.

------
olavgg
If these could fit in a 1u chassis on a PCIe slot without a bracket, that
would be awesome!

~~~
pjc50
It's 16mm x 20mm, you could probably lose it inside a PCIe socket.

------
sklogic
Could not find anything on a ball pitch. Can it be suitable for DIY projects?

~~~
metafex
If you have an X-Ray to check if the balls are soldered perfectly, then yes.
Put it on the board and off with it in the reflow-oven. Keep in mind, it's
only 20x16mm.

If not, then you're mostly out of luck, but you can try if you manage to
source it. And find some datasheets. And have a driver for it. And...

On a more serious note: It would be very nice, if it was possible to design a
board with components like this, but it is way to hard and needs way too much
equipment and experience to do right.

~~~
sklogic
Well, OSH Park and alike are surprisingly good now, I even had some success
recently with an ice40lp WLCS16 package (by pushing well beyond the
recommended design constraints), got 1 passable board out of 3. So even a very
small ball pitch is somewhat suitable for DIY.

What caught my eye in this SSD package is a low ball count, so it might be
potentially suitable for DIY even without an expensive hardware. If it's
possible to route it on 4 layers without too many small vias it might be a
game changer.

~~~
ChartsNGraffs
Low ball count also means that it is easier for the part to not sit flat when
soldered.

------
grenoire
What are the very obvious downsides to using these, lifetime or cost?

~~~
aavotins
It's BGA, so it's soldered onto the motherboard/logic board. Non user
upgradeable, and if the SSD dies, you're in for a costly repair. Another step
in the direction of (very) disposable hardware with little to no service
options.

~~~
yitchelle
Does the other packages give you this ability? The other fine pitch parts are
also very difficult to change over.

~~~
aavotins
This is a chip that gets soldered directly on the board. While it is possible
to solder this specific chip to a detachable interface that can be removed, I
highly doubt anyone will ever do it.

This form factor has a huge advantage for OEMs - they can just slap on a
single chip that has everything built in - controller, memory management and
the actual storage. Less parts = less convoluted assembly process and that is
cheaper. While theoretically you can put a BGA fully integrated SSD SOC like
this on a PCI-E card or M2 etc., it kinda beats the purpose.

~~~
yitchelle
Personally, I think BGA parts are great. They are small and quite robust
mechanically an highly integrated (as you have said).

I did my early engineering years with DIP parts, the days of when you could
just desolder the memory device and place with a higher density device are
long gone.

------
fit2rule
I'd love to ship my software on a little SSD like that.

~~~
onion2k
There are rumours floating about that Nintendo's next game system might go
back to game cartridges, which is pretty much exactly "shipping software on a
little SSD".

~~~
monocasa
Mask ROMs will always be cheaper at scale than Flash.

~~~
jandrese
How in the world are you going to get the scale anywhere near the same as the
flash market though?

I have been wondering about going back to carts. When I see a 64GB Flash Drive
for $10 retail I have to think that that the price premium over pressed Blu-
Ray disks starts to make sense. You can significantly cut down on loading
times, avoid obnoxious installs to the local disk, and have potentially more
flexibility in the future to release larger games that don't require multiple
disks.

Plus, the optical drive is one of if not the most failure prone component on
the system (next to only the fan), so eliminating it could cut down
considerably on returns and warranty claims.

~~~
monocasa
When I say 'at scale', I really mean ~1000 units. You can already get under
your price point with Mask ROMs (and they're faster than flash!).

~~~
jandrese
The problem is that your competition isn't Flash Drives at probably $5/per in
bulk. It's Blu-Ray disks that cost $0.005/per in bulk. Plus you need to build
up a factory to make massive ROMs, since most people doing this are targeting
sizes in the handful of KB. You can't even take advantage of competition in
the marketplace because your product will be so specialized. Not like the disk
pressing houses that are all over China.

------
revelation
That's very few pins for a BGA device, might be something for the hobbyist?

~~~
dogma1138
It doesn't need that many pin's it's an SSD on chip, all it needs is power and
PCIe pinout.

