anon-commenter Does it? Miss the point? The product looks great indeed - I merely did my best to explain the downsides as opposed to just writing OH LOOK THIS IS AMAZING GO BUY IT NOW, which is simply not what we are supposed to do as Notebookcheck writers.
Maik Schmitt nice comment! Thanks. Yes, I forgot about CNVi Wi-Fi cards; I think they have a different key (not A+E) so there is indeed a chance regular M.2 A+E cards won't work.
While a great idea/niche-product in general, it's important to note that these will not work on Intel platforms from Gemini/Coffee Lake and onwards due to the Intel proprietary connectivity integration (in simple terms part of the WiFi/Bluetooth module is already inside the CPU) regarding the M.2 A/E WiFi Cards - and btw. nor any of the M.2 A/E to M-key adapters will work on those. Look up "CNVi" for more details (e.g. on wikipedia). A good indicator whether or not this might work is the last digit on your Intel WiFi card; cards with a "1" as last digit of their product designator (e.g. AX201/211) won't work whereas a "0" (e.g. AX200/210) usually indicates a non-CNVi slot and thus a higher chance for non-WiFi A/E-key modules working. Considering memory and storage prices in general, these modules might be on a pricier side for now but taking into account that such kind of SSDs were only available for industrial users until recently (e.g. Cervoz T425 or innodisk 4TE2), it's nice to see some development and product(s) released to a wider consumer customer base.
This article completely misses the point. This is a unique product that is great for certain niches. Prior to that, you would have to get a funky M2 A+E adapter to NVMe adapter, if you even had room available. With this new drive, many niche use-cases are now opened. It's a great product that will probably be as reliable as any other SSDs.
An A/E-key M.2 slot, normally occupied with a combo Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, is something most laptops, mini-PCs and desktop PCs released after 2013 have. This clever storage solution here lets you make use of that slot to add extra storage space, faster than any SATA III SSD. Naturally, there are several drawbacks to this approach.
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