m.2, mSATA, or 2.5" SSD Drives - Which Is The Fastest?

[BigDay]

Which drive is faster?

 

The Samsung 850 Evo m.2-2280, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA, or the Samsung 850 EVO-Series 2.5" SSD? (All at 120GB)

 

Thanks!

 

[GirlFromYonder]

4 minutes ago, BigDay said:

Which drive is faster?

 

The Samsung 850 Evo m.2-2280, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA, or the Samsung 850 EVO-Series 2.5" SSD? (All at 120GB)

 

Thanks!

 

all th same just different form of plugging it in or just with different connectors

[S7117]

8 minutes ago, BigDay said:

Which drive is faster?

 

The Samsung 850 Evo m.2-2280, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA, or the Samsung 850 EVO-Series 2.5" SSD? (All at 120GB)

 

Thanks!

 

If you are going after a really fast M.2 drive I would get the 950 Pro from samsung as it will be much faster than the both of those ssd's.

[Captain_WD]

42 minutes ago, BigDay said:

~snip~

Hi there

 

The M.2, mSATA and 2.5" are form factors of a drive meaning the physical size and the way they connect to the motherboard. This form factor has nothing to do with the performance of the actual SSD as it may use the SATA controller or the PCIe controller, resulting in major performance differences. 

 

I'd suggest to check if the drive you are looking at is a SATA drive or a PCIe NVMe drive and which type does your motherboard/computer support.

 

Captain_WD.

[yippy3000]

Quick recommendation: Don't get mSATA.  That connection format seems to have lost out to M.2 so I would expect that no new products will have it as they will all have M.2 instead.

 

M.2 slots can support one or both connection protocols of PCIe (NVMe) or SATA.  An NVMe SSD in a PCIe supported M.2 slot can be much faster than 2.5" SATA drives but most M.2 SSDs on the market now use the SATA connection protocol which means they are exactly the same speed as a 2.5" SATA drive.

 

In the specific case of the Samsung 850 M.2, it uses SATA over M.2 so will be EXACTLY the same speed as the 2.5" version.