Chinese gaming console makers have just taken the covers off a new external storage solution that rivals the microSD Express used by Nintendo for the Switch 2. According to The Verge, this new SSD form factor is more than three times faster than the microSD Express while keeping a footprint that’s only slightly larger. Storage manufacturer Biwin calls it the Mini SSD, while another OEM tagged it as the 1517, which refers to its dimensions and is similar to how JEDEC, the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council that defined the M.2 form factor, named other SSD form factors, like 2280, 2242, and 2230.
The so-called Mini SSD has a theoretical maximum sequential read speed of 3.7 GB/s and write speed of 3.4 GB/s. It connects to your system via PCIe 4.0 x2 and is currently offered at 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. By comparison, microSD Express can only support a maximum transfer speed of up to 985 MB/s. Full-sized SD Express cards can have a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 3,940 MB/s, making them marginally faster than the 1517 — but they’re over three times larger than the tiny Mini SSD.
The Nintendo Switch 2 is the first device that uses the microSD Express standard, with stocks for the memory card selling out soon after the console’s announcement. So, it’s just appropriate that handheld gaming consoles are also among the first ones to use Mini SSD. GPD showed off its 1517 card slot on the Win 5, its latest handheld gaming console that features the powerful AMD Strix Halo chip, which mounts the SSD on a tray similar to how you'd expect to find a SIM card in a phone. The upcoming OneXPlayer Super X is also said to have a similar slot, making fast storage expansion on tiny and portable devices much easier.
Biwin says that this storage solution is available for laptops, phones, tablets, cameras, and nearly every other device that can accept a card slot. Aside from that, it also has an IP68 protection rating, making it perfect for flagship devices and action cameras. However, it should be noted that the 1517 isn’t a JEDEC standard yet, so there’s no telling if and when this will be adopted globally.
We don’t have pricing information yet about Mini SSD cards or their compatible readers. However, we hope that this technology eventually makes its way to more devices, as we certainly appreciate the small package and fast read and write speeds that it offers.
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