Toshiba Introduces MacBook Air 'Blade-Type' SSDs to Mass Market

Re:Toshiba Introduces MacBook Air 'Blade-Type' SSDs to Mass ... by pmjordan on Monday November 08, 2010 @02:06PM (#1883530)

Hate to steal Apple's thunder, but the first eeePC (of all things!) was, I think, the first to do this, and many non-HDD netbooks now use this design. The MBA ones just seem to be longer, allowing more flash chips. Previous examples not only have cribbed the mini PCIe's connector but also the entire form factor (5cm or 7cm long), despite not using the PCIe protocol. Interestingly, the MBA still seems to use the PCIe connector, just the form factor has changed.

So far the various netbook designs are electrically incompatible. I don't know where the MBA one fits into all this.

EDIT: looks like they standardised the interface as "mSATA" back in June.

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Re:Toshiba Introduces MacBook Air 'Blade-Type' SSDs to Mass ... by catch23 on Monday November 08, 2010 @05:09PM (#1884238)

Hate to steal EeePC's thunder, but this has been done in embedded PCs on mini-itx form factor computers since flash storage was available, pre-sata connectors. It looked like a 1-inch nub that fits in the IDE connector. It was perfect for embedded PCs since power requirements were always very low for flash memory and an easy way to save a watt.

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Re:Toshiba Introduces MacBook Air 'Blade-Type' SSDs to Mass ... by pmjordan on Monday November 08, 2010 @05:29PM (#1884305)

Indeed, but weren't/aren't those typically encased in a plastic housing, not unlike CompactFlash cards?

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Re:Toshiba Introduces MacBook Air 'Blade-Type' SSDs to Mass ... by gcb on Monday November 08, 2010 @08:10PM (#1884839)

Those drivers never had the same form factor! even in the same eeepc they used to differ.

my eeepc 1000 has 40GB of SSDs. 8gb in fast SSD drive, and 32 on another, much slower. The 8gb measures some 8cm. the 32gb measures 7cm.

There were also dell mini9 that measured some 10cm if i'm not mistaken.

Those drivers use some non-standard pata (newer asus) or sata (older asus and dells) over a mini pci-e connector.

I have no idea what was standardized as mSATA, may be something completely different, or could be the sata version of those mini-pci-e

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