NVME Timeline?

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JABlaine

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Sep 30, 2020
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Just wondering if there is an existing thread I can 'watch' for NVME support. All of our laptops in our 1-to-1 program are NVME based, so I'm looking forward to that capability.
 
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I don't think @Steve has thought that far ahead... how he will announce the availability of SpinRite versions after the one in development,
Check his roadmap, though it may no longer be fully current... https://forums.grc.com/threads/spinrites-development-roadmap.32/
Here's my guesses:
6.1, which is basically 6.0 but with AHCI and larger drive support and speed! June 2021.
7.0, which is 6.1 running on UEFI (and maybe some other misc things, like USB support) June 2022.
7.1 which is current with everything we know of today (AHCI, NVMe, USB, UEFI) June 2023.
 
@JABlaine: Steve does not, indeed cannot, and thus will not make any kind of time line prediction for the completion of his projects. There are just too many unknowns, too many gotchas, too many unexpected turns, etc. They will simply be done when they are done.

The Roadmap document PHolder pointed to is the best thing to watch. It has been revised a few times already. It may very well be revised again at some point.
 
@JABlaine : As the guys said, I'd love to know when, too, since it would make planning so much easier. But the problem with so much of today's software is that it's written to a schedule. I “write” to get to ”right”, and as we have repeatedly seen, there's just no way to plan that. What I can and do promise, at least, is that this projec — the continual development of SpinRite — now has my entire productive attention and that it will happen as quickly as I'm able to make it happen.
 
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With nvme being more or less the standard for any new builds in 2H2020 and later (even low-end Dell/HP laptop builds), seeing that ReadSpeed/SpinRite are going to remain behind the curve for at least another generation is a bit saddening.

I downloaded ReadSpeed today and was surprised by the "nvme unsupported" message. My SpinRite 6.0 has always been behind a generation of tech that I'm running (UEFI, for example) and knowing that 6.1 and 7.0+ are likely to not support hardware that is 'current' today (nvme) even on 'tomorrow's' (2023?) version is something I wish was not the case. 2023, two+ years, to support drives which are not "unusual" in 2020 is not super useful...

Here's to hoping that nvme, with it becoming a 'mainstream' tech as I type this, and not some esoteric tech, is available sooner than later in SR.
 
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@micsaund : Perhaps there's some confusion about ReadSpeed vs SpinRite. Your NVMe system will run just fine under SpinRite. It does right now. It won't be as fast as it will be eventually, but it will run. My goal, of course, is to speed it up. But I can only do one thing at a time. Which means there needs to be a sequence. And the sequence should be designed to meet the needs of the most people as soon as possible. Which explains why IDE and SATA drives connected to Legacy and AHCI controllers has come first. After that, the same logic dictates that compatibility with UEFI systems should follow next. And then USB support, followed by NVMe. The fact that the technology you have focused on is at the end of the sequence is unfortunate. But, as I said, in the meantime, NVMe is currently supported by SpinRite, already.
 
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@Steve Yes, that is the disconnect. I didn't realize that the new SR would fall-back to the old access method and not just give-up on the drive like ReadSpeed does. Thanks for the info.
 
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I have removed my content
 
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@pmikep it all depends on your connector as I understand it. The slots will usually be M and M+B compatible or B and M+B compatible but if you have an M key SSD and a B/M+B reader it won't physically fit due to the indentations and pin layout.

If it fits it should read and work AFAIK.
 
pmikep said:
Are there any decent (working) NVME to SATA converters? In the "old" days, I had bought a SATA to PATA converter, which worked with SpinRite. (And actually worked faster than native SATA support on some of my boxes. AND allowed me to see SMART data on the SATAs.) Perhaps this would be a workaround until SR works with NVME? (In my case, I have NMVE M.2, which seems different from NVME SATA?)
Click to expand...
So after doing a ton of reading this morning I think I have it figured out. The B key is for SATA and NVMe using 2 PCIe lanes and the M key is for NVMe using 4 PCIe lanes. Both of these are M.2 slots but not compatible since it appears that the M key has to use all 4 lanes and cannot be restricted down to 2 lanes.
I have found tons of B key to SATA adapters since they both only use 2 lanes but the only M key adapters I can find are for PCIe adapter cards or USB 3.1 ports.
I'm in the same boat as you where I used the SATA to PATA adapters but I don't think there are currently any, because of the difference in the technology, and may never be any NVMe to SATA adapters.
 
M.2 slots can be keyed in different ways. Depending on the chipset driving them, they can be mSATA capable, and/or they can be PCIe capable (which is what NVMe is.) NVMe drives are fast because they're basically directly on the PCI bus. If you put them in an adapter and then translated them to SATA or USB or whatever, they're going to be slower than if they were inside the PC directly on the PCI bus. There are PCI add-in cards that can host mSATA or NVMe drives on them, but they frequently are on a 1x or 4x card and so are multiplexing. This means they will reduce the speed of any NVMe on them, which wants to run at 4x directly.
 
Oh, bummer. Was just going to try out readspeed and hadn't realized it's just been SATA that has been being worked on. I'm glad to hear that NVME drives are on the roadmap though! I'm very interested in running SpinRite and readspeed against all my drives, which my most important performance wise are on NVME drives.

Keep up the good work Steve! I'll run ReadSpeed against my SATA drives available and eagerly await SpinRite's 6.1 update! I'll keep watch to be a beta/alpha test subject for the NVME drives when you get there.
 
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