[Updated] iPhone 6s uses NVMe SSD, capable of up to 1800+MB/sec reads

[Mew]

As the phone starts to arrive in people's hands and tech specs start to be unraveled (evidence points out the A9 is still a dual core with 2gb etc), Anandtech has discovered that the 6s is using a Sandisk NVMe SSD*, making this the first phone in the world to do so. 

 

Quote

 

While the name alone isn’t all that interesting, what is interesting is how this SSD enumerated. One notable difference is that this storage solution uses PCI-E rather than SDIO, so it’s unlikely that this is eMMC. Given the power requirements, it’s likely that this isn’t the same PCI-E as what you’d see in a laptop or desktop, but PCI-E over a MIPI M-PHY physical layer. By comparison, UFS's physical layer is MIPI M-PHY as well, while the protocol is SCSI.

 

The iPhone 6s in turn appears to use NVMe, which rules out both UFS and traditional eMMC. To my knowledge, there’s no publicly available mobile storage solution that uses PCI-E and NVMe, so this controller seems to have more in common with the Macbook SSD controller than anything in the mobile space. It doesn’t seem this is an uncommon idea though, as SanDisk detailed the potential advantages of PCIE and NVMe in mobile storage at the Flash Memory Summit a month ago.

 

Sequential reads speeds are starting to reach that of mainstream SSDs.

 

 

 

I think that it's great to see that Apple just simply doesn't skimp on their phones and tablets and is able to offer the very best every year for the past 3 years. Of course, the real world benefit of such fast storage may not show as much of a benefit, but it's good to see something new and fresh to be excited about.

 

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9662/iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-preliminary-results

 

Edit:

*It may not be a Sandisk SSD because the iFixit tear down revealed Toshiba flash nand chips.

 

Update:

 

Was looking through Anandtech's Twitter feed when I saw this tweet.

 

The speed of the nand is dictated by size and is also capable of some insane read speeds.

 

 

These speeds may be due to disk caching however, but still very impressive.

 

Quote

 

The thought that we might ever see transfer speeds of 2GB/s in a smart phone just may be ludicrous. Disk caching may be helping but the ideal of pulling 2GB/s out of a single controller/single memory chip device just isn’t realistic, regardless of how many similar results there may be. While Joshua Ho at Anandtech pegs disk speeds much lower on the same phone, his test results still show the new iPhone 6S as being twice as fast in disk speeds as any Android on the market.http://www.anandtech.com/show/9662/iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-preliminary-results

 

Source: http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/iphone-6ss-nvme-controller-and-speed-dictated-by-device-capacity/2/

[Cactu]

WOT, no wonder they charge like $500 per phone other than just because they know they can

[FunkyFeatures]

As much as I hate to say it - I could easily see phones overtaking light usage for an example school documents and stuff - if we get a proper keyboard for it. I mean, they almost have the performance now with the new Apple processor beating out certain other processors.

[CTR640]

WOT, no wonder they charge like $500 per phone other than just because they know they can

Yes, they can. Why? Because Apple.

[STRMfrmXMN]

APPLE DID SOMETHING INNOVATIVE WTF

[Cactu]

As much as I hate to say it - I could easily see phones overtaking light usage for an example school documents and stuff - if we get a proper keyboard for it. I mean, they almost have the performance now with the new Apple processor beating out certain other processors.

i think laptops and tablets will always stay dominant because of the screen real estate. Simply just more room to work

[Cactu]

APPLE DID SOMETHING INNOVATIVE WTF

BUT STEVEN JOBS IS DEAD, EXPLAIN!!! EXPLAIN!!!! (Doctor Who reference)

[Shakaza]

Now this is the kind of thing we want to see! Progress! I don't care if it's Apple or not; innovation like this is always good!

[VagabondWraith]

Getting the 6s Plus this Thursday. This is truly a nice piece of tech! SSD's obliterate everything else so good to see.

[Mew]

APPLE DID SOMETHING INNOVATIVE WTF

 

And they don't say a single thing about it at the announcement LOL. It's as if it's not even something to be proud about. 

[JuztBe]

Kudos to Aple. They haven't even bragged about it. It hurts to say, but it looks like this time its true premium phone.

[AlexGoesHigh]

wut? a sandisk SSD? ifixit teardown show it was using a toshiba chip on the 16gb version, my guess this is exclusive to the 64 and 128gb iphones

[dmegatool]

WOT, no wonder they charge like $500 per phone other than just because they know they can

 

 500$ ? More like 650$ for the cheapest model. 750$ for the cheapest 6s plus.

 

Edit: That's 900$ and 1030$ on the canadian store. Yikes ! 

[Nineshadow]

wut? a sandisk SSD? ifixit teardown show it was using a toshiba chip on the 16gb version, my guess this is exclusive to the 64 and 128gb iphones

Yup

 

Toshiba THGBX5G7D2KLFXG 16 GB 19 nm NAND Flash

[Nineshadow]

WOT, no wonder they charge like $500 per phone other than just because they know they can

The 6S Plus 128GB is $1500 here at the moment

Normal 6S 16GB $1050.

[Bsmith]

and no bragging about it, now THAT is how you do great stuff, just leaving them out for the reviewsers/testers to find out themselves.

THAT people is a real product statement.

[AlexGoesHigh]

And they don't say a single thing about it at the announcement LOL. It's as if it's not even something to be proud about. 

That's because Apple only markets the stuff Jonh Doe might care about, for us, the fact that they are using a fully fledge SSD on a phone might be equal to a nerdgasm. To Jonh Doe this information is almost irrelevant, its the same reason apple never said anything about the RAM upgrade and only said that the A9 SoC is X amount faster that last year iPhone.

 

Apple never talks about specs, ever.

[WaterproofBeanie]

This is interesting

[SurvivorNVL]

Now we'll end up with laptops that are just screens and keyboards where you slide the phone in to a dock, and bam.  It powers it.  Get some fans on the phone.  

[Homicidium]

More and more arguments for a purchase arise.

[terrytek]

What worries more is how dismal the Nexus 6 did. 30MB/s?? That's worse than my hard drive, for sure.

 

Kudos to Aple. They haven't even bragged about it. It hurts to say, but it looks like this time its true premium phone.

This might be the reason i stop hating on iPhones and i'm actually kinda considering getting the 6S, because to me, i can never daily an Android, though i think they're superior.

[Prysin]

incase anyone who owns a Iphone6 wondered  -> that is where your battery life went..

[TroubleKlef]

APPLE DID SOMETHING INNOVATIVE WTF

 

but Apple didn't invent NVMe. They're just copying. /s

 

And they don't say a single thing about it at the announcement LOL. It's as if it's not even something to be proud about. 

 

It's cause of Apple's product philosophy. They set a standard for what they believe a good experience is and then match the specs to achieve that. Other manufacturers (unfortunately) spam specs and hope that it's a good experience. 

[qwertywarrior]

i doubt they are using NVMe must be something else

[BuckGup]

Makes me want one more now. Even though I am already getting a 6S Plus