BiWin's CL 100 Mini is a particularly puny but potent SSD for portable gaming
BiWin's CL 100 Mini is a particularly puny but potent SSD for portable gaming — 15 x 17mm in size and up to 2 TB in capacity
The BiWin CL 100 Mini is a compact NVMe SSD designed for portability in gaming handhelds. Its small form factor, measuring 15 x 17 mm, resembles a microSD card. BiWin initially unveiled the unit earlier this year, but it has only recently received a name and pricing. Currently, the SSD is exclusive to select gaming consoles from BiWin, as well as the GPD Win5 handheld.
These devices feature specific hardware slots for the CL 100 Mini, allowing for easy insertion similar to that of an SD card. In contrast, larger drives like the M.2 2230 found in the Steam Deck necessitate opening the device and securing it with an M.2 screw.
The CL 100 Mini operates as a standard NVMe 1.4 drive with a PCIe 4.0 interface. Installation is straightforward, and it utilizes the Silicon Motion SM2268XT2 controller, which is also employed in numerous M.2 drives from other manufacturers. Despite its limited capacity of a single Samsung V8 TLC NAND slab, the drive boasts impressive read and write speeds of 3700 MB/s and 3400 MB/s, respectively. These figures are highly advantageous for gamers.
For external use, BiWin offers a separate mini-SSD reader with a USB-C port, albeit with reduced speeds of around 3000 MB/s. The drive is available on Amazon for 139.99€ (512 GB), 259.99€ (1 TB), and 699.99€ (2 TB), with the latter being a third-party seller offering. The drive's pricing is comparable to similar M.2-2230 drives from trusted brands, while the reader is priced at 79.99€.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
