M.2 interfaces and classic SSDs

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
V

vassi.joseph

Jun 4, 2018
3
0
10
Correct me if I'm wrong, I may have misunderstood what m.2 does and what it is.

If I'm correct m.2 is a "slot" on the motherboard.
On that slot you can insert m.2 "hard drives" that are kinda like small ram modules or you can connect cables that end to a sata 3 output.
This new interface is supposed to be much faster than sata 3 but slower than ram.

If these are correct I have a question.
Everything else being equal if I connected a traditional ssd to an m.2 slot would it gain any speed at all than if I connected it to a normal sata 3 slot in the motherboard?

I'm asking to determine if maybe I should get a motherboard that has m.2 support or if it's not worth it as I have no plan to get actual m.2 drives.

Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
CircuitDaemon
There are mostly correct in what you assume. Except for the speed thing.

M.2 is the form factor but it depends on your manufacturer how it's "wired" into the motherboard. There are M.2 slots that have a direct interface to a SATA port and thus, the same speed limitations. Most of these motherboards will disable certain SATA port when you use that M.2. So regardless of it being SATA or M.2, these will usually max out at 550~600MB/s.

There are also M.2 slots that are wired to a PCI-E lane (or more specifically, a set of lanes). These slots are meant for NVME SSD's which boost speeds over 1GB/s in read/write. This will also reduce bandwidth of certain slot or completely disable one when used in certain motherboards. It depends on the...
Sort by date Sort by votes
CircuitDaemon

CircuitDaemon

Honorable
Feb 23, 2016
549
0
11,660
There are mostly correct in what you assume. Except for the speed thing.

M.2 is the form factor but it depends on your manufacturer how it's "wired" into the motherboard. There are M.2 slots that have a direct interface to a SATA port and thus, the same speed limitations. Most of these motherboards will disable certain SATA port when you use that M.2. So regardless of it being SATA or M.2, these will usually max out at 550~600MB/s.

There are also M.2 slots that are wired to a PCI-E lane (or more specifically, a set of lanes). These slots are meant for NVME SSD's which boost speeds over 1GB/s in read/write. This will also reduce bandwidth of certain slot or completely disable one when used in certain motherboards. It depends on the manufacturer and the model.

In either case they are both the same shape and size, but they vary on the way they work electronically. Also, you won't make a SATA drive faster if you plug it into a M.2 slot (regardless of its type) because the SATA drive is limited by the SATA interface that it has, being 6Gbps its top (which translates to the 550MB/s I was saying before).

So, answering your question, no, you won't get any benefit from upgrading to a newer motherboard if what you want is to use your current SSD. Even if using a native M.2, if it's not a NVME drive there's really not a lot of benefit other than the size it takes.

HOWEVER, you could get a NVME drive and use it with your current motherboard over a PCI-E slot. There are adapters and some brands even include them with the SSD. Just make sure your motherboard is able to boot from them, as you usually require a bios update or mod. Don't take this for granted, I own a Crosshair V Formula Z which is supposed to be the top of the line for Asus' boards in the AM3+ socket and there's no native support. There is a modded bios however.

Hope this answers your questions!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
M

mdd1963

Titan
Jan 14, 2006
16,616
1,735
81,240
There are M.2 SATA SSDs, and M.2 NVME (PCI-e x4) SSDs; the SATA spec drives perform identically to standard 2.5" SATA SSDs...

And since a a standard 2.5" SATA drive can't be connected to an M.2 port/slot, the answer is only a sort of hypothetical 'would not make a difference if you could, still 540 MB/sec reads' sort of answer....
 
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