M.2 Enquiry

[Belps96]

Hey everyone!

 

So at the moment I have a Samsung 840 120GB SSD. Now I am wanting to get a bigger SSD (500GB) as they are getting much cheaper now, and I would like to be able to put a few games on it. I am looking at the 850 EVO m.2 and 2.5" variants, and I'm hoping you guys can help me decide. 

I'd like to know 

1. Is there any advantage to using the 2.5" variant? The reason I want to use m.2 is my motherboard has a slot on the back, which means one less drive and 2 less cables sitting in my case.

2. Does a PCIe m.2 drive use CPU or chipset PCIe lanes (I'm pretty sure the samsungs use sata anyway)

3. Does m.2 introduce any complications when it comes to using the drive as a boot drive?

 

My motherboard is an ASUS Z97i-Plus.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[ComradeVodka]

10 minutes ago, gFrenken97 said:

They will both use SATA, the only advantage is more space and less cables.

M.2 uses PCIe lanes so if OP wants to use this he needs to make sure his setup allows it

[Belps96]

2 minutes ago, ComradeVodka said:

M.2 uses PCIe lanes so if OP wants to use this he needs to make sure his setup allows it

Even if it is a SATA M.2 drive such as the Samsung 850 m.2? 

[ComradeVodka]

31 minutes ago, Belps96 said:

Even if it is a SATA M.2 drive such as the Samsung 850 m.2? 

Intriguing...Seems I've been out of the loop for too long. I thought M.2 and mSATA/SATA were mutually exclusive. Can you link me to where it says that this M.2 drive doesn't use PCIe lanes?

[Captain_WD]

2 hours ago, Belps96 said:

~snip~

Hi there

 

the guys gave you some good info on this. Here are my two cents:

- The difference between M.2 and 2.5" SSDs is the form factor meaning the size of the drive itself. 

- What really matters is which interface and controller they are using in order to communicate with the system. both types can use the SATA connection as well as the PCIe connection so I'd check with the specific models. The PCIe would give you tremendous performance increase over the SATA connection but it also has some limitations so I'd look into that too. 

- You should be able to find information regarding the PCIe lanes used by the M.2 drive (if the motherboard supports that) and if and which ones are taken by it. 

 

As the guys suggested M.2 drives generally save you cables and space in your case which may result in better airflow, but aside from that, if they use the SATA interface it wouldn't make any difference in terms of performance. 

 

I'd look into the specific M.2 Keys to see which of them offer SATA, PCIe, USB and other connections. For example a M.2 drive that has a M key connector would give you PCIe x4, SATA and SMBus abilities but can't really use the USB interface. 

 

Post back if you need more info

 

Captain_WD.
 

[Belps96]

7 hours ago, ComradeVodka said:

Intriguing...Seems I've been out of the loop for too long. I thought M.2 and mSATA/SATA were mutually exclusive. Can you link me to where it says that this M.2 drive doesn't use PCIe lanes?

See here it says that the interface is SATA (this is from the official product page)

Just not sure if it ALSO uses PCIe lanes or not...

[Belps96]

6 hours ago, Captain_WD said:

Hi there

 

the guys gave you some good info on this. Here are my two cents:

- The difference between M.2 and 2.5" SSDs is the form factor meaning the size of the drive itself. 

- What really matters is which interface and controller they are using in order to communicate with the system. both types can use the SATA connection as well as the PCIe connection so I'd check with the specific models. The PCIe would give you tremendous performance increase over the SATA connection but it also has some limitations so I'd look into that too. 

- You should be able to find information regarding the PCIe lanes used by the M.2 drive (if the motherboard supports that) and if and which ones are taken by it. 

 

As the guys suggested M.2 drives generally save you cables and space in your case which may result in better airflow, but aside from that, if they use the SATA interface it wouldn't make any difference in terms of performance. 

 

I'd look into the specific M.2 Keys to see which of them offer SATA, PCIe, USB and other connections. For example a M.2 drive that has a M key connector would give you PCIe x4, SATA and SMBus abilities but can't really use the USB interface. 

 

Post back if you need more info

 

Captain_WD.
 

I'm not too fussed performance wise because from what I've seen, the faster drives don't really improve boot times much, and my PC is only a gaming PC, so the performance gains probably aren't worth it.

[Captain_WD]

17 hours ago, Belps96 said:

~snip~

That's correct. Boot timing is improved by when you have your system booting for about 5-6 seconds you are not likely to have an amazing improvement by decreasing that by one or two seconds unless you are going after benchmarks or other enthusiast things. 

Same goes for gaming.

 

Feel free to ask if there are other questions, I'd be happy to explain!

 

Captain_WD.