SSD units are mainly connected through the SATA interface, but also PCI Express and USB. Viking Modular has now presented a new SSD with the SATADIMM formfactor that plugs into a DDR3 memory slot.
The name SATADIMM comes from the fact that the SSD is physically installed in a regular 24-pin DDR3 memory slot, but has a SATA connector for connecting to the regular storage controller. Future design expect to use the memory controller instead of the SATA interface.
The unit has NAND flash memory circuits made with SLC or MLC technology. The capacity is at best 200 GB with SLC chips and pulls power from the memory slot, which means it doesn’t need any extra cables for power.
The units supports TRIM and has integrated AES-128 encryption and competitive performance. Write and read speeds are 260MB/s and the SSD is capable of 30,000 IOPS.
The module is mainly intended for server systems, where the SATADIMM formfactor works a lot better than regular 2.5″ drives.
“It can breathe new life into maxed out systems with the high performance and low power consumption of SSD technology. Furthermore, it opens
up the possibility for new design, no longer constrained by standard hard drive space requirements.”
