My confusion comes from how the provided secondary storage NVMes are more expensive, even though they have slightly slower speeds relative to primary ones of the same capacity. Is there something about the secondary ones I’m missing?
I believe it’s because the 2230 form factor is a less common size for NVMe drives. Economies of scale and all that.
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Is there anything special about the form factor?
It is 30mm long instead of the normal 80mm. They first appeared with the Steam Deck and have gradually become more common.
It also means that higher capacities need to put everything on one chip instead of using 2-4 chips. It’s cheaper to build a 1TB NVMe stick if you can use four 250GB chips instead of a single 1TB chip.
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MP600 MINI 2TB (Gen4) PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 2230 SSD
This is my 2230 in my FW16 as the 2nd drive. It is very quick and happy with the performance and stability. It is a bit expensive but for my use case I can justify the higher cost for the better performance. Again, I relate from my personal experience. Thanks!
they did not originate with the steam deck but it is the device that brought them the most attention. But other than that everything you said is correct afaik and exactly why they cost more.
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I have the same one in my fw12. I have had no issues so far and the speed + responsiveness could not be better.
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