what is U.2

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
R

RePlayBoy101

Distinguished
Oct 24, 2014
85
0
18,630
so i baught the ga-z270x gaming 5 (im buildng my first PC...and the wires are confusing me a bit)


i just was reading some stuff about the MOBO and i saw this U.2 connection... is it just for the intel SSDs?

can i put my sammy 850evo in there?
 
Solution
E
You can not connect a Samsung 850 Evo to that port - because it is physically not possible connect a SATA disk to a U.2 port.

U.2 is a way to connect PCIe x4 SSD drives - for drives based on NVMe standard. You can connect to it PCIe and NVMe drives, but they have to be in a special physical format which is similar to regular 2.5" SATA/SAS SSD's. But are not the same at all.

No company outside Intel has ever produced a drive that you can buy (*) but they are the Intel PCIe 750 series SSD's and very hard to find : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=intel+2.5+750+ssd&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aintel+2.5+750+ssd


(*) Actually a few companies like Kingston have U.2 drives but they are labelled as...
Sort by date Sort by votes
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,438
17,905
184,590


In theory, with the correct Intel drive, the benchmarks will be a bit faster.
In actual real world use? I defy anyone to tell the difference over a standard SATA III drive in a blind test.

And for "why do they say"?
Marketing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
E

eyupo92

Distinguished
Aug 23, 2010
165
0
18,860
You can not connect a Samsung 850 Evo to that port - because it is physically not possible connect a SATA disk to a U.2 port.

U.2 is a way to connect PCIe x4 SSD drives - for drives based on NVMe standard. You can connect to it PCIe and NVMe drives, but they have to be in a special physical format which is similar to regular 2.5" SATA/SAS SSD's. But are not the same at all.

No company outside Intel has ever produced a drive that you can buy (*) but they are the Intel PCIe 750 series SSD's and very hard to find : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=intel+2.5+750+ssd&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aintel+2.5+750+ssd


(*) Actually a few companies like Kingston have U.2 drives but they are labelled as "DataCenter Enterprise SSD"s and sold for more than US$ 1000.

On most motherboards, connecting a U.2 SSD will disable at least one of the m.2 32 Gbps ports.

Just like the previous silly SATA Express ports pushed by Intel to motherboard manufacturers and no disk based on SATA Express has ever been produced at all, this U.2 is also pushed to them. Just like the new silly Optane stuff that no one except Intel will release a drive for it is being pushed to motherboard manufacturers.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,438
17,905
184,590


+Many for this.

I've seen more than a few threads here....
"Do I need this?"

The only answer is "No"

Or even worse:
"I bought this, and..."
Then, the answer is "Send it back"
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom