The mSATA standard was issued back in 2009 and was specifically tailored for netbooks and notebooks with SSDs. The choice of SSDs with mSATA interface is still pretty small, but two new series from OCZ use mSATA in two varieties based on the own Indilinx controllers and SandForce.
The new series Strata and Nocti are not official yet, but have been listed by several european etailers with complete specifications. The Strata series use the older Indilinx Barefoot controller that OCZ owns, while the Nocti series is based on SandForce 2141/2181, which is also an older version. Both Strata and Nocti follow the specifications for SATA 3.0 Gbps, mSATA interface.
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| Model | STR-MSATA-30G | STR-MSATA-60G | NOC-MSATA-30G | NOC-MSATA-60G | NOC-MSATA-120G |
| Series | Strata | Strata | Nocti | Nocti | Nocti |
| Controller | Indilinx Barefoot | Indilinx Barefoot | SandForce 2141/2181 | SandForce 2141/2181 | SandForce 2141/2181 |
| NAND |
MLC | MLC | MLC | MLC | MLC |
| Capacity | 30 GB | 60 GB | 30 GB | 60 GB | 120 GB |
| Seq. read speed |
125 MB/s | 130 MB/s | 280 MB/s | 280 MB/s | 280 MB/s |
| Seq. write speed |
40 MB/s | 85 MB/s | 255 MB/s | 260 MB/s | 260 MB/s |
| Random 4K reads |
11,000 IOPS | 12,000 IOPS | 6,000 IOPS | 11,500 IOPS | 11,500 IOPS |
| Random 4K writes |
750 IOPS | 1500 IOPS | 12,500 IOPS | 12,500 IOPS | 32,000 IOPS |
It is not clear when Strata and Nocti launches, but considering the early listings it should not take long now. While mSATA is not the most popular or used standard today it is slated to become more common in thinner computers, like Ultrabooks.
Source: TCMagazine
