Despite the physical format being manufacturer-specific, the CL 100 Mini appears to be a standard NVMe 1.4 drive with a PCIe 4.0 interface. The installation instructions are simple. The Silicon Motion SM2268XT2 controller is a standard NVMe affair, and it's also used in standard M.2 2280 Crucial and Kingston drives, among others.
Despite being connected to only one slab of Samsung V8 TLC NAND, it can still reach 3700 MB/s on sequential reads and 3400 MB/s for writes, both excellent figures as far as the needs of gamers are concerned. If you want to use the BiWin CL100 Mini as an external drive, the company offers a mini-SSD reader with a USB-C port, though speeds are limited to around 3000 MB/s in either direction.
You can get the drive from the BiWin store on Amazon, in 512 GB for 139.99€ and 1 TB for 259.99€. There's also a 2 TB unit advertised, though that one is only available from third-party sellers for an arguably disproportionate 699.99€. The smaller units are roughly in line with equivalent M.2-2230 units from reputable manufacturers. Meanwhile, the reader unit is priced at 79.99€.
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Bruno Ferreira Social Links Navigation Contributor Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/biwins-cl-100-mini-is-a-particularly-puny-but-potent-ssd-for-portable-gaming-15-x-17-mm-in-size-and-up-to-2tb-in-capacity#main
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