NGSFF

PCI-SIG, the standards committee behind PCI Express and related standards, has issued a warning about incompatibilities between their M.2 standard and Samsung's NGSFF/NF1 SSD form factor. The notice from PCI-SIG does not refer to Samsung by name, but does indirectly call them out for basing a new form factor on a mechanically identical M.2 connector without introducing a new keying option to prevent improper insertion of M.2 drives into NGSFF slots or vice versa. Samsung's NGSFF form factor was unveiled in 2017 as a proposed replacement for M.2 and U.2 SSDs in datacenter applications. The goals are similar to the competing EDSFF standards derived from Intel's Ruler: provide more power than can be delivered over M.2's 3.3V supply, allow hot-swapping of cards, and widen the...