A quick look at the 750 Series

While what I will be testing today is the PCIe card, this launch is an interesting one because they are also launching a 2.5 inch version as well. What makes it so interesting though is that all of the specification and performance numbers of the PCIe drive also apply to the 2.5 inch drive. This is because the 2.5 drive still connects via PCI Express using the SFF-8639 connector. Intel is introducing this form factor because a lot of the OEMs would like to have an option for ITX builds. As a big LANrig fan, I can completely support this. In fact I would love to get my hands on one to try out in a future build. It’s great to see them keeping SFF builds in mind!

So both drives are available in just two sizes. You can get a 400GB model and then a 1.2TB model. Today I will be testing the 1.2TB model. I know personally I would love to see a third capacity in between the two current capacities. With 480 starting to become the norm the 400 is a little small in comparison but jumping to the 1.2TB is a huge step.

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So what is the big fuss about NVMe? Well NVMe stands for “Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification”. Intel and a long list of other manufactures have been working together for years to bring NVMe to the market. In order for everything to work, not only do you have to have drives, but you also have to have motherboards that support it as well. Intel has worked with all of the manufactures to make sure that the Z97 and X99 boards completely support NVMe. A lot of the previous chipsets like X79 should support it as well but it will depend on if the manufacture added support via a BIOS update, a lot of the older boards are End Of Life and with that don’t get updates. So before you consider going this direction make sure your PC will support it. The short version of what NVMe does is give your SSD a direct connection to your CPU through PCIe giving low latency and high bandwidth. This is a drastic change from SATA where you connect your SSD, it connects to the SATA controller that then talks to your CPU. Cut out the middleman. 

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Here is a peak at the 1.5 inch drive as well. One side looks like a normal SSD but the backside does have a heatsink integrated to keep things cool. The data connection can be plugged into a M.2 adapter then run to the drive.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #36562 02 Apr 2015 18:59
Today I take a look at a monster of an SSD from Intel. It is available in both PCIe and 2.5 inch models so it will fit in your main PC or your LANrig as well!
Sideout's Avatar
Sideout replied the topic: #36572 03 Apr 2015 19:40
Maybe Intel will give us one to throw in the LANOC server for the lan parties??!!!! (Hint hint wish wish???)

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