No more PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs are going to be shipped to the client businesses as the requirement for faster SSDs becomes the norm.
PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs are coming to an end following the transition to Gen4 & Gen5 Standards
The PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSD standard, which was released in 2010, is coming to a halt. This is at least going to be true for the server businesses as the latest reports suggest that the SSD makers are no longer shipping these SSDs to their client partners.
As reported by STH, their sources have informed the publication that the SSD manufacturers are discontinuing their PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs to the client side. This is also somewhat true for the mainstream PC market but the client side is said to be the most affected. The 14-year-old standard will soon phase out as the manufacturers transition to faster standards like PCIe Gen4 and Gen5.
The PCIe Gen4 standard came out in 2017, increasing the SSD transfer speeds dramatically from 8 GT/s to 16 GT/s. In the last 7 years, many manufacturers have transitioned completely to making PCIe Gen4 SSDs as the motherboard makers have almost dropped equipping their boards with Gen 3.0 interfaces for the modern motherboards.
Moreover, the PCIe Gen5 interface is becoming more common on modern motherboards in both the mainstream PC market and the server side as well. The need for higher speed is particularly more on the latter since companies have to provide incredibly high transfer speeds to their customers for faster performance.
The PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs may soon disappear from the market completely as we are hardly hearing about any manufacturer releasing PCI-E SSDs. The only recent example is Klevv, which has recently launched its CRAS PCIe Gen3 C715 SSD but we mostly find manufacturers revealing Gen 4.0 and Gen 5.0 SSDs these days.
Motherboard makers have now fully transitioned to offering PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD ports from the very start and offer up to Gen 5.0 speeds that can offer incredibly high sequential read/write speeds of up to 14.5/13 Gbps such as Samsung PM9E1, which recently went into mass production phase.
The latest V-NAND technologies and advancements in storage solutions have offered client-side businesses much more reliable, efficient, and faster solutions than the PCIe Gen3 could offer. And the PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs may be soon phased out completely for the mainstream PC market as well.
News Source: ITHome
