Sandisk shows off NVMe+SAS SFF8639 drives

IDF 2013: One drive, one connector, two fast interfaces

Sep 11, 2013 by

SanDisk - logoSandisk was showing off a new SAS drive connector, the NVMe + SAS SFF8639. If you are scratching your head right now and wondering where this came from, you are not alone.

The short story is that like the NVMe + SATA connectors released earlier, this one does the same for SAS. It sports a dual port SAS connector plus four lanes of PCIe on the same connector. It looks like the SATA + PCIe equivalent but the key notch is filled in and the SATA pins are blank. One the left below is a normal SanDisk SAS drive with the SFF8639 equivalent on the right.

Sandisk SSD with SAS + PCIe NVMe SFF8639 connector

Two SAS SSDs, one with added NVMe

What this means is that you can plug a SATA SFFxxx device in to a SFF8639 device but not the other way around. How can you complain about idiot proofing tech in a sane way? In any case there is now a SAS + PCIe connector lurking around if you need to one and it is a good thing that seems to be done right. Call Sandisk and buy 12 soon.S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate