General M.2 Confusion

[Trik'Stari]

So I'm looking at getting a new ssd drive in the near future and I'm wondering if this m.2 SSD will work with my motherboard

 

SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249045

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128716&cm_re=gigabyte_GA-z97mx-gaming_5-_-13-128-716-_-Product

 

My concern is whether or not it will physically fit in there. and will it be as good or better than my current Samsung 840 pro? which I obviously will be keeping. Will it interfere in any way with my gtx660?

 

Don't know much about storage, if you need more info my rig is in my profile.

[Kevinkt]

it won't be in the way.

 

 

any motherboard make isn't that stupid to make something not fit in with something else there or next to it.

[Trik'Stari]

it won't be in the way.

 

 

any motherboard make isn't that stupid to make something not fit in with something else there or next to it.

I was thinking of operation as well as physical compatibility, don't know anything about the m.2 platform or how it works.

 

Would m.2 be better as an OS drive than sata 3?

[Kevinkt]

I was thinking of operation as well as physical compatibility, don't know anything about the m.2 platform or how it works.

 

Would m.2 be better as an OS drive than sata 3?

should be fine. the macpro works off m.2

[MattP123]

It will fit. 

[alpenwasser]

Would m.2 be better as an OS drive than sata 3?

I can't speak as to physical compatibility, but honestly, as long as

there isn't a seriously superior controller and NAND solution on an

m2 SSD, it might have improved sequential reads and writes, but it's

not going to do all that better at random I/O (which is most of a

typical usage scenario's workload), so don't expect any miracles.

Having said that, if you can get an m2 SSD for a comparable price to

a SATA3 drive, all other things being equal (reliability, longevity

and so on), I don't think it's unreasonable to use one personally

(well, at least I haven't heard of any serious caveats, it's just

that at this moment, it's not really as superior in practice as the

marketing material would have you believe AFAIK).

[Trik'Stari]

I can't speak as to physical compatibility, but honestly, as long as

there isn't a seriously superior controller and NAND solution on an

m2 SSD, it might have improved sequential reads and writes, but it's

not going to do all that better at random I/O (which is most of a

typical usage scenario's workload), so don't expect any miracles.

Having said that, if you can get an m2 SSD for a comparable price to

a SATA3 drive, all other things being equal (reliability, longevity

and so on), I don't think it's unreasonable to use one personally

(well, at least I haven't heard of any serious caveats, it's just

that at this moment, it's not really as superior in practice as the

marketing material would have you believe AFAIK).

Well they seem to be fairly cheap at the 60 gig range, I'm just wondering if it's worth it to use one as an OS drive since I have a single m.2 slot in my motherboard. Either that or as a small games drive maybe? Basically just "its there, is it worth using?". I have no idea if it will using it will take up a sata slot the way some other storage solutions do, even though it doesn't physically plug into one of the sata slots.

[alpenwasser]

Well they seem to be fairly cheap at the 60 gig range, I'm just wondering if it's worth it to use one as an OS drive since I have a single m.2 slot in my motherboard. Either that or as a small games drive maybe? Basically just "its there, is it worth using?". I have no idea if it will using it will take up a sata slot the way some other storage solutions do, even though it doesn't physically plug into one of the sata slots.

If it takes up a SATA slot I'd say it would depend on whether you

can find a better m2 or a better SATA3 solution (price/performance,

or other things which are important to you). Also maybe try to find

out if your M/B has any quirky behavior with regards to the m2 slot

and so on (I'd expect no, but you never know).

If it is an actual proper dedicated port and you can get a good

m2 drive for an acceptable price, I don't really see a reason not

to use it, either for the OS or games, whichever is more important

to you. It's not like an m2 SSD is something radically different

from a SATA SSD, the implementation may be a bit different in the

details, but in the end it's still primarily a controller connected

to a few NAND packages and an interface to the outside with some

added bits to make it all work smoothly.

[Trik'Stari]

If it takes up a SATA slot I'd say it would depend on whether you

can find a better m2 or a better SATA3 solution (price/performance,

or other things which are important to you). Also maybe try to find

out if your M/B has any quirky behavior with regards to the m2 slot

and so on (I'd expect no, but you never know).

If it is an actual proper dedicated port and you can get a good

m2 drive for an acceptable price, I don't really see a reason not

to use it, either for the OS or games, whichever is more important

to you. It's not like an m2 SSD is something radically different

from a SATA SSD, the implementation may be a bit different in the

details, but in the end it's still primarily a controller connected

to a few NAND packages and an interface to the outside with some

added bits to make it all work smoothly.

What is the minimum size SSD you would use for an OS drive for windows 7?

[alpenwasser]

What is the minimum size SSD you would use for an OS drive for windows 7?

Hm, good question. I've mainly been using Linux in the past few years.

I have been running Win7 on one machine since last February though. The

rig has a 120 GB SSD, about half of it is full (64.5 GB), and I don't

have all that much stuff installed on it.

I suppose it would depend on what additional software you intend to

install, but personally I don't think I'd go lower than 120 GB unless

it was like a really minimal install for a special-purpose build.

[Trik'Stari]

So to add to my confusion, I find out that the SSD I linked in the original post might be non compatible with my motherboard, because while it is an m.2 SSD, it's based on pci-express-x 2

The issue is that there also exists Sata 3 Based m.2 SSD's, and I cannot determine which one my motherboard uses. I believe that it is Sata 3 based because according to the motherboard manual, when an M.2 SSD is installed, the Sata 3 ports 4/5 will become unavailable. However it does not state outright that I must used either a Sata 3 or a pcieX2 based m.2 SSD.

 

Am I correct? So confused with this lol......

I am now considering this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148798 M.2 SSD, will it work?

 

Perhaps not, did some deeper digging on gigabyte's website to find this

"1 x M.2 PCIe connector
(Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe SSD support)" So does that mean PCIe SSD will work? Aren't those supposed to be faster than standard Sata SSD?

[alpenwasser]

Perhaps not, did some deeper digging on gigabyte's website to find this

"1 x M.2 PCIe connector

(Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe SSD support)" So does that mean PCIe SSD will work? Aren't those supposed to be faster than standard Sata SSD?

Hm, yeah, M.2 can be a bit of a mess. The different sort of connectors

are keyed to prevent incompatible devices being used in the wrong sockets.

Wikipedia has a section on it, I recommend having a look at that.

According to your post, your motherboard's socket is keyed with key M,

which would indeed indicate PCIe SSD compatibility.

To be really sure, you could always ask the manufacturers directly,

I must honestly admit that while I've read a few article and some

technical documentation, I haven't personally played around with

M.2 yet, so there might be some caveats I'm still unaware of.

[BaronVonBlood]

more important than the size (they all fit m.2 enabled mobo's) is the pci-e lane assignment. is the m.2 taking up an x1 or x4 pci-e lanes?. this affects multi-gpu (xf, sli) configs. also some m.2 are sata which would be the same (except physical size) as sata3.

if the m.2 has pci-e controller than it would be roughly 60% faster on boot. if sata3 you would get better RL speed from RAID array ssd.

[VulsaviiK]

This seems like one of those things where people should probably wait until an M.2 drive is released which actually takes advantage of the new interface, better controller, better flash etc. M.2 NGFF drives don't really seems to yield a huge performance boost right now, even though, in theory, they're capable of double the speeds of Sata 3. It seems like one of those things where people are better off waiting for an M.2 drive with a better controller and better flash memory which will actually take advantage of the new standard

[Dimwitted]

Think of a M.2 drive as an ssd without an enclosure. If you're really space constrained like with a laptop or a NAS it makes sense. On the desktop side though it's nothing more than a curiosity, especially if you already have an ssd installed. A lot of dollars for very little benefit.