Remember the fingernail-sized SSD that Biwin announced back in April this year? Well, it looks like the brand already has working samples and is sending them out to certain companies to trial its efficacy.
While Biwin is simply referring to its product as a Mini SSD, some manufacturers are calling it the “1517”, in reference to its diminutive stature – it measures at 15mm x 17mm x 1.4mm, making it smaller than a 1-sen coin but just slightly larger than the MicroSD form factor. Or, as we mentioned at the start, fingernail-sized.
The speeds of the Biwin Mini SSD is as previously advertised: It’s PCIe 4.0 x2, offering sequential read and write speeds of 3,700MB/s and 3,400MB/s, respectively; and capacities of 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB.
To put those average sequential speeds in another context, the new MicroSD Express cards that work with the Nintendo Switch 2 tops at less than 1,000MB/s across the board.
Handheld console maker GPD released a short video clip showing how the Biwin Mini SSD would slot into its device. And while it affirms that the brand is clearly supporting the memory maker’s efforts, the video also highlights the SIM card slot-style form factor Biwin is going for.
Again, the Mini SSD is slightly larger than the current microSD card, meaning that the special SIM card-like slot will be exclusive to the storage format.
To that end, Biwin has seemingly secured two Chinese gaming handheld makers to adopt its Mini SSD. The first is GPD with its Win 5 that was announced in July, while the second is the OneXPlayer Super X. At the time of writing, pricing for the storage piece still remains a mystery.
(Source: The Verge, GPD)
