SSD upgrade for laptop

[Antwan]

Hello,

I just bought a Acer Aspire VN7-791G   ... and from what I have seen online (i haven't opened it yet) it has a empty M.2 slot.

M.2 SSDs confuse me a lot and I am not sure what type of ssd I need.

Could anyone please drop some knowledge regarding this?

Thank you.

 

P.S. - I was considering buying a 2.5' Samsung Evo and swap the HDD, but when I saw that I have extra room to fit a SSD and a HDD in the laptop, I've decided to go with the m.2 drive.

[sushisharkjl]

1 minute ago, Antwan said:

Hello,

I just bought a Acer Aspire VN7-791G   ... and from what I have seen online (i haven't opened it yet) it has a empty M.2 slot.

M.2 SSDs confuse me a lot and I am not sure what type of ssd I need.

Could anyone please drop some knowledge regarding this?

Thank you.

 

P.S. - I was considering buying a 2.5' Samsung Evo and swap the HDD, but when I saw that I have extra room to fit a SSD and a HDD in the laptop, I've decided to go with the m.2 drive.

Any m.2 form factor drive will work.

[Antwan]

2 minutes ago, sushisharkjl said:

Any m.2 form factor drive will work.

Isn't there a difference between PCIe and SATA based M.2 drives...

Also I saw that I need a drive with B & M keys (which i have no idea what it means) 

[sushisharkjl]

Just now, Antwan said:

Isn't there a difference between PCIe and SATA based M.2 drives...

Also I saw that I need a drive with B & M keys (which i have no idea what it means) 

Either will work in your laptop, just make sure its form factor and screw location works with your motherboard.

 

PCIe drives will be massively faster than SATA drives but also more expensive.

 

B+M keyed drives means that their contacts have two slots in them, which is one of two configurations that m.2 drives come in, the other being M-keyed which has just one slot. B+M drives are compatible with pretty much everything due to them having both slots.There are also E-keyed cards but they are generally only Wi-Fi or other PCIe minicards.

[Antwan]

As long as a M.2 EVO drive will work, I don't really care. That way I can put a EVO and keep my HDD.

[sushisharkjl]

1 hour ago, CUDA_Cores said:

not entirely true. Some M.2 drives are SATA and some are PCIe. Sometimes you cannot use a SATA m.2 drive in an M.2 slot using PCIe protocol or vice versa. It really comes down to how the M.2 slot is keyed.

I believe either PCIe or SATA will work in any m.2 drive as long as the key fits, or am I wrong? 

[Antwan]

2 hours ago, CUDA_Cores said:

yeah, it'll work as long as the key fits. M.2 drives are keyed for that reason so you don't shove the wrong drive into the wrong slot.

I just bought a Samsung SSD which was taken down from a Lenovo Yoga Pro 3 ... its BM keyed (as the Acer slot) so I guess it wouldn't be a problem to plug it in the Acer.