M.2. VS SSD

[IllUMINATUz]

What is the difference between M.2. & SSD..?? I know that SSD can work off from either a PCIe port or a normal SATA port.. M.2. can also work off of a PCIe port.. 

 

Now, the thing is that in the Z97 motherboards, the SATA express chips will be disabled once the onboard M.2. is being used.. 

 

I am actually confused.. Can someone please explain it to me..?? That would be great..

[Aniallation]

What is the difference between M.2. & SSD..?? I know that SSD can work off from either a PCIe port or a normal SATA port.. M.2. can also work off of a PCIe port.. 

 

Now, the thing is that in the Z97 motherboards, the SATA express chips will be disabled once the onboard M.2. is being used.. 

 

I am actually confused.. Can someone please explain it to me..?? That would be great..

 

M.2 is basically just a tiny PCIe slot for SSDs. M.2 SSDs go into M.2 slots and act like SSDs should

[Sauron]

M.2. is an interface for storage, it doesn't do anything on its own unless an ssd (or hdd but it would be pointless) is connected to it. It works like a pcie slot, it's just in a different shape to make fitting ssds in easier (they also won't occupy slots that could go to gpus or other expansion cards).

[IllUMINATUz]

ohk. so the data speeds from a M.2 and an SSD are basically the same.. just a change in the size of the device, a different port design.. that's it..??

[alpenwasser]

ohk. so the data speeds from a M.2 and an SSD are basically the same.. just a change in the size of the device, a different port design.. that's it..??

It will depend on the SSD and on the specific M.2 interface. Different

versions of M.2 provide different interfaces, not just PCIe (so, for

example, SATA, USB, audio, Future Memory Interface, and so on), see this list

on Wikipedia for more information.

Also, depending on your motherboard, the M.2 might, as indicated above,

also be connected to a SATA port from your chipset, not a PCIe slot.

The specifications should indicate which is the case, and you'll need

to find the correct M.2 SSD to connect to the slot.

In theory, a PCIe M.2 slot provides higher bandwidth than a SATA3

slot, so an SSD connected to it can achieve higher throughput. However,

for the time being at least, this is only really the case for sequential

reads and writes, random I/O doesn't achieve high enough speeds to

bump up against the SATA3 maximum bandwidth in most cases. So depending

on your usage pattern, you may or may not notice an actual difference

in practice (so, if you're running an OS on your SSD, which is mostly

randon I/O, it'll be very similar to running your SSD on a SATA3 port,

whereas if you're working with large files, and therefore lots of

sequential reads and writes, you should notice a nice improvement).

[IllUMINATUz]

Thanks a lot @alpenwasser