The exterior storage market has skilled fast development over the previous few years, significantly within the retail shopper section. The demand has been fueled by elevated quantities of user-generated multimedia content material and high-resolution paintings / belongings for video games which are higher off being put in in exterior drives. The development has primarily been in in bus-powered flash-based storage gadgets.
Thunderbolt SSDs are on the prime when it comes to each efficiency and value, however the previous few years have seen varied high-end moveable SSDs with a USB interface. The USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) ecosystem has been slowly gaining traction. Many machine options have turned up within the retail market during the last couple of years – all of them have been based mostly on ASMedia’s ASM2364 bridge chip, with a discrete PCIe 3.Zero x4 NMVe SSD downstream of the bridge. While such configurations ship on the 20Gbps promise, they don’t seem to be significantly power-efficient.
The energy effectivity facet modified earlier this month with the introduction of the Kingston XS2000 moveable SSD. Based on Silicon Motion’s SM232x household of USB Flash Drive (UFD) controllers, the product household presents full Gen 2×2 efficiency at a fraction of the ability consumed by the Gen 2×2 SSD options at the moment in retail.
Looking to indicate off their new controllers, Silicon Motion despatched throughout a naked reference board on which the Kingston XS2000 relies. The firmware used within the Kingston XS2000 and the reference design are just about equivalent, with the one distinction being the absence of the casing and thermal resolution. The evaluation under presents an in depth analysis report of the SM2320 reference design. Except for the evaluation of the thermal design points / temperature profile, it additionally tracks what shoppers can anticipate from the Kingston XS2000 moveable SSD.
Introduction
External bus-powered storage gadgets have grown each in storage capability in addition to speeds during the last decade. Thanks to fast developments in flash know-how (together with the appearance of 3D NAND and NVMe) in addition to sooner host interfaces (reminiscent of Thunderbolt Three and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2), we now have palm-sized flash-based storage gadgets able to delivering 2GBps+ speeds. Traditionally, these moveable drives have fallen into one of many six classes under, relying on the efficiency profile and the elements used.
- 2.5GBps+ class: Thunderbolt SSDs with PCIe 3.Zero x4 NVMe drives
- 2GBps+ class: USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 SSDs with PCIe 3.Zero x4 NVMe drives
- 1GBps+ class: USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSDs with PCIe 3.0 (x4 or x2) NVMe drives
- 500MBps+ class: USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSDs with SATA drives
- 400MBps+ class: USB 3.2 Gen 1 SSDs with SATA drives
- Sub-400MBps+ class: USB 3.2 Gen 1 flash drives with direct flash-to-USB controllers
At the 2021 CES, Phison launched the U17 (USB 3.2 Gen 2) and U18 (USB 3.2 Gen 2×2) UFD controllers, which added further classes within the above listing – a sub-1GBps efficiency class utilizing direct flash-to-USB 3.2 Gen 2 controllers and a sub-2GBps efficiency class utilizing direct flash-to-USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 controllers. The Crucial X6 Portable SSD lineup was upgraded earlier this yr to make the most of the Phison U17 controller, however the U18 controller would not appear to have hit retail but.
Silicon Motion, then again, was late to UFD get together when it comes to placing out their press launch. However, they managed to get their design wins transport together with the general public announcement of their SM2320 and SM2321 controllers. The SM2320 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 controller really guarantees 2GBps+ speeds, whereas the SM2321 USB 3.2 Gen 2 permits 1GBps+ flash drives. These numbers appear to supply greater than what Phison guarantees within the U17 and U18, although real-world testing is important to check the 2 controllers past the claimed advertising and marketing numbers.
