Samsung may end SATA SSD production soon

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Home / SMB NAS and NVMe constraints

  • Several commenters note few “reasonable” multi‑bay NVMe NAS options for home/SMB; SATA SSDs still dominate >4‑drive DIY builds.
  • Some point to newer NVMe-based NAS boxes from smaller vendors, but major brands (QNAP, Synology) are seen as slow to embrace all‑NVMe, possibly due to bay-based pricing models.

PCIe lanes, M.2 expansion, and practicality

  • Discussion dives into how many M.2 drives you can realistically hang off a consumer or HEDT board.
  • In practice, PCIe lane limits, bifurcation support (often not below x4), GPUs eating lanes, and expensive active PCIe switch cards cap you around 8–12 NVMe drives per system without moving to server-class platforms (e.g., EPYC, Threadripper).
  • Some report large all‑NVMe home NAS builds are workable but fragile: long boot times, PCIe errors, and mechanical hassle due to lack of hot-swap.

Why vendors might drop SATA SSDs

  • Many argue the SATA SSD market is shrinking:
    • Consumer PCs have largely moved to NVMe.
    • Enterprise prefers NVMe (U.2/U.3/EDSFF) or SAS; low‑end SATA capacity SSDs are a small niche.
    • Updating controllers/firmware for new NAND on SATA is seen as no longer worth the cost.
  • View that SATA SSDs have become a dumping ground for low‑quality flash; only a few models are still trusted.

Remaining use cases and defenses of SATA SSDs

  • Defenders highlight:
    • Cheap, easily scalable storage pools (8–60 drives) via mature SATA HBAs.
    • High‑capacity 2.5" SATA SSDs (e.g., 8TB+) for quiet, low‑power NAS, where NVMe density or cost lags.
    • Simple boot drives in servers and older desktops, plus “cartridge-like” swappable drives.
  • Counterpoint: vendors’ behavior suggests this demand isn’t large enough to sustain rich SATA SSD ecosystems.

Interface future: SATA, SAS, NVMe, USB

  • Expectation that SATA stays mainly for HDDs and legacy, then slowly fades from chipsets as optional.
  • SAS suggested as a better SATA replacement for multi‑drive setups, while consumers lean on NVMe (M.2/U.2) and maybe USB-attached SSDs or JBODs.
  • Some see USB-based expansion as attractive; others distrust USB reliability for always-on storage.

Market dynamics, China, and pricing

  • One thread blames a “cartel” and hopes Chinese manufacturers will back‑fill cheap SSDs; replies argue this is knee‑jerk and that tariffs largely burden consumers while putting price pressure on Chinese exporters.
  • Another commenter notes even Chinese marketplaces are raising SSD prices and limiting >1TB options.

Thermals and endurance: SATA vs NVMe

  • One claim is that 2.5" SATA SSDs have an inherent “heatsink advantage” and are better for 24/7 use.
  • Others rebut: many SATA SSDs have plastic shells and minimal thermal coupling; typical 2–3W draw doesn’t need much cooling.
  • For most consumer NVMe workloads, throttling is rare; enterprise NVMe and even SATA in datacenters rely on active airflow anyway.

Quality, brands, and product direction

  • Some lament the end of “good” SATA SSDs (Samsung 870, Crucial MX500), seeing it as end of an era.
  • Clarifications that Samsung is (reportedly) only reducing SATA, not NVMe; Crucial/Micron are shifting focus to OEM and larger contracts, with other brands using the same NAND.

Uncertainty about the news itself

  • Late in the thread, a link is shared disputing the original article’s implication that Samsung is exiting consumer SSDs entirely, framing it as rumor or misinterpretation focused only on SATA SKUs.