China Is About To Launch Ssds So Small You Insert Them Like A Sim Card

MicroSD cards are mini but slow; nan M.2 retention sticks successful your PC are blazing accelerated but bigger and afloat enclosed. Now, a caller type of SSD retired of China could beryllium nan champion of some worlds — and it’s already group to look successful 2 cutting-edge gaming portables.

Chinese retention shaper Biwin is calling it nan “Mini SSD,” though different shaper refers to it arsenic nan “1517”; it measures conscionable 15mm x 17mm x 1.4mm thick, smaller than a U.S. penny and conscionable somewhat larger than MicroSD. Despite that, it offers maximum sequential publication speeds of 3,700 megabytes per 2nd (or 3,400MB/s writes) complete a PCIe 4×2 connection, and offers 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities.

To put that successful context, the caller MicroSD Express cards that activity pinch nan Nintendo Switch 2 apical retired astatine a theoretical 985MB/s, little than a 3rd nan speed. And while a full-size SD Express paper could theoretically hit Mini SSD astatine 3,940MB/s, it would beryllium astir doubly nan size of Biwin’s creation.

The nano-SIMs utilized successful caller smartphones are still smaller, though, and M.2 drives are still faster. I whipped up a speedy floor plan truthful you tin easy comparison various retention cards and SIMs:

TypeLengthWidthHeightTheoretical max speed

Mini SSD	15mm	17mm	1.4mm	3,700MB/s
MicroSD	11mm	15mm	1mm	985MB/s
SD	24mm	32mm	~2mm (varies)	3,940MB/s
M.2 2230	22mm	30mm	~2mm (varies)	~8,000MB/s
M.2 2280	22mm	80mm	~2mm (varies)	~14,000MB/s
Nano-SIM	8.8mm	12.3mm	0.67mm	N/A
Micro-SIM	12mm	15mm	0.76mm	N/A
Mini-SIM	15mm	25mm	0.76mm	N/A

It’s not clear if Biwin’s Mini SSD is simply a existent modular that different retention makers tin easy adopt. But the company’s trading it for laptops, tablets, phones, cameras and more, pinch its ain dedicated slot that useful precisely for illustration smartphone SIM paper slots: instrumentality successful a pin to region nan tray.

The institution claims IP68 h2o and particulate resistance, which could beryllium useful for phones successful particular, and three-meter driblet resistance.

Two cutting-edge Chinese gaming portables already look to beryllium customers, some of which made announcements astatine ChinaJoy this past week. There’s the GPD Win 5, nan monster artillery backpack wielding Strix Halo handheld we told you astir successful July, which you tin spot pinch nan caller SSD successful nan video atop this story.

OneNetbook’s upcoming OneXPlayer Super X hybrid laptop/tablet, which has nan aforesaid Strix Halo chip, is besides now advertizing a dedicated “card slot” for a mini SSD.