Toshiba Unveils A Super Small Micro M.2 512GB NVMe SSD

Fresh off its announcement of producing the densest 64-layer NAND yet, Toshiba takes it one step further with what can only be described as a “micro M.2 SSD” family. At the recent 2016 Flash memory Summit, Toshiba announced the new BG series of SSDs, which will utilize 3D TLC BiCS flash. What is special is that the NVMe controller is built into the flash chip, enabling the smallest SSDs yet.

At 30mm long, BG1 drives are almost one-third the size of a typical M.2 SSD

The 3D TLC BG series chips will be available in BGA packages and on M.2 SSDs ranging from 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. These drives will utilize the PCIe 3.0 x2 interface so up to 2GB/s is theoretically possible, but performance will probably fall somewhere within the realm of traditional SATA 6Gb/s. That being said these drives do not appear to feature any DRAM for caching so they’ll most likely be closer to the budget side of the SSD market. Still, the use of NVMe will somewhat offset this with more seamless caching via system memory. Pricing is not given, though without the added cost of DRAM, BG series M.2 devices could be surprisingly affordable.

As a sidenote, Toshiba’s BG1 series is a slightly different beast which was announced in August 2015. It is nearly identical with the exception of traditional MLC NAND, so capacity is capped at 256GB. We do know performance of the BG1 series however, which is rated for “up to” 750 MB/s reads and 260 MB/s writes, so that should provide a rough idea of how the new 3D TLC BG drives will perform.

M.2 2230 (note: not 2280) sized devices are one thing, but where BG 3D flash devices will shine will be in BGA applications. Just think of a single 16x20mm 256GB or 512GB chip featured on a smartphone for instance. Flash NAND has proven to be a disruptive market technology and the continued miniaturization of devices while increasing performance is a trend that will only continue in the foreseeable future.