China is about to launch SSDs so small you insert them like a SIM card

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

Chinese retention shaper Biwin is calling it the “Mini SSD,” though different shaper refers to it arsenic the “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 work speeds of 3,700 megabytes per 2nd (or 3,400MB/s writes) implicit a PCIe 4×2 connection, and offers 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities.

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

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

It’s not wide if Biwin’s Mini SSD is simply a existent modular that different retention makers tin easy adopt. But the company’s selling it for laptops, tablets, phones, cameras and more, with its ain dedicated slot that works precisely similar smartphone SIM paper slots: instrumentality successful a pin to region the 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, the monster artillery backpack wielding Strix Halo handheld we told you astir successful July, which you tin spot with the caller SSD successful the video atop this story.

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

We don’t person immoderate thought of pricing connected these caller SSDs, and person seen nary merchandise listings for them yet.