One of my favorite lines in the high tech market is, “Standards are great. Everyone ought to have one.” This is especially true for SSDs. The continued evolution of NAND flash component density has given rise to significant SSD capacities in many small form factors. SSDs are not constrained to traditional 3.5”, 2.5” or 1.8” hard drive form factors and can therefore come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. So, with the long product lifecycle requirements for embedded systems, how do you pick a form factor that will be around for many years to come and that has sockets and connectors that are inexpensive and are widely used?
In an article from eWeek.com, IHS iSuppli is forecasting new design wins for 2.5” HDD into all-in-one PCs. These 2.5” HDDs are more power efficient but a little slower than the 3.5” counterparts. What does this mean for SSDs for embedded systems? It means that 2.5” form factors are still winning cutting edge computing designs and you can’t go wrong designing in a standard SATA socket for 2.5” or Slim SATA (MO-297) SSDs. That’s an easy one. What about the others? Stay tuned….