PCN support – All generational changes and firmware updates are handled through a controlled and timed process The market has settled on 22mm wide as the standard for desktop and laptop implementations; the aftermarket drives available and the accessible slots we've seen have all been that width. The most common lengths we've seen are 80mm ("Type-2280") and 60mm ("Type-2260"). The lengthier the drive, the more NAND chips you can tend to stuff on it (plus, M.2 drives can be single- or double-sided), though know that length isn't an absolute measure of capacity. 42mm, 60mm, and 80mm M.2 SSDs (Credit: Intel) The first attempt was a new form factor called mini-SATA, or mSATA. The boiled-down essence of an SSD with the shell removed, an mSATA drive is a bare, rectangular circuit board. (Most mSATA drives relevant to upgraders measure about 1 by 2 inches.) mSATA drives fit into a special slot in a laptop's logic board or on a PC motherboard. As the name suggests, the slot is a conduit to the Serial ATA bus in the system. The interface on the drive end is an edge connector on the PCB, as opposed to the usual SATA cabling. The mSATA drive also draws all the power it needs through the slot. (Credit: HP)

The drive is available in capacities ranging from 120 GB to 480 GB. It offers you sequential transfer speeds quite faster than the regular SATA drives. The Random Access Performance is at par with the SATA drives.Are you upgrading your gaming rig or maybe you’re just looking to replace a failing SSD drive? You probably have been seeing different M.2 drives around as options for storage as well as other devices. M.2 is a new form factor for card sizes and it shows up in everything from laptops to PCS. What Are M.2 Slots? Heat Dissipation: M.2 2208 > M.2 2242. As to M.2 2242, due to the limited length, the chip layout is very compact, so its heat dissipation is not good as M.2 2290. FAQ 1. All M.2 SSDs can use on any motherboard with an M.2 interface? You have access to an excellent and exceptional transfer speed of up to 560MB/s read and 160MB/s write. The best options for Ultrabooks, notebooks, tablets, portable gaming systems, and smartphones, they have been made to stand the test of time for the future devices. Support for Device Sleep Mode (DevSleep) and Intel Smart Response Technology (ISRT). This will ensure that the devices can completely shut down to save battery, while not sacrificing the response time.

If you are looking for a faster, thinner and quieter environment of working with your drives, this can be your best bet. It offers you a faster boot time. You get an extra performance as compared to the traditional options available through hard drives. The KingSpec drives to ensure you an excellent trouble free and reliable performance. Welcome to the cutting edge! You're shopping for a kind of drive that many folks don't even realize exists. As a result, you need to pay attention to several factors that may not be documented very well while you shop. Let's recap. No. Different motherboards of M.2 interface support different channels. Some support PCI-E only when some compatible with SATA and PCI-E. If you want to buy an M.2 SSD, ensure what channel your PC support. 2. What determines the channel of M.2 SSD? You can easily fit smaller M.2 devices into larger M.2 slots. This is something that often trips up people who are building their first PCs. The M.2 slots size doesn’t refer to the connector that the M.2 uses, but rather the length of the card itself. Larger slots can easily accommodate smaller sized cards. There are four versions of PCI-E specifications: PCI-E X16, PCI-E X8, PCI-E X4, and PCI-E X1. Most PCI-E SSD like Intel 750 series uses PCI-E X4.However, from an engineering point of view, SSDs didn't needto be that big. The enclosure an SSD comes in has a lot of dead space inside. It's designed in that 2.5-inch size and shape to make the drive fit into those existing bays. So when mobile-device designers, challenged with slimming down laptops and tablets, reassessed this issue, the consensus was clear: The bulky 2.5-inch form factor, eventually, would have to go. If you're a custom PC builder with RGB-lighting fever, and have RGB-ified just about every inch and corner of your system, perk up: ADATA has brought pretty lights to the internal SSD final frontier. The XPG Spectrix S40G is the most flamboyant NVMe drive we've seen to date. With its exceptional 4K write speeds, top-notch sequential-read speeds, and respectable durability rating, ADATA makes having a top-of-the line, over-the-top SSD affordable and fun, in one fell swoop. Who It's For When it comes to an M.2 drive being too long, you’ve got some challenges ahead of you. The physical length of your M.2 device can’t be changed. You also typically can’t remove other components from your motherboard to make room. This means we’re going to have to get creative and think outside of the box to support an M.2 drive that’s physically too long.

As the image above shows, the top PCIE-4 M.2 slot of the Asus B550-M Plus motherboard supports the following M.2 drive sizes: That's not a bad thing. Especially in the case of laptops, an older machine might support only M.2 SATA-bus SSDs, and that will be the boundary of your upgrade path...end of story. As a result, the only reasons you'd upgrade the drive, in that situation, would be to get more capacity, or if the old one failed.Though it can't quite match the gaming prowess of some of the latest generation of PCIe 4.0 speedsters, the 990 Pro with Heatsink still offers respectable gaming performance while being a thoroughbred workhorse for creative tasks. It's an appealing choice and a worthy upgrade from the 980 Pro. The SSDs with the 2242 form factor indeed is the future perfect options. We would indeed look ahead to the development in the days ahead. If you find any of better options than the ones we have discussed already, do share them with us. Conclusion: Here are some random examples of various sizes of M.2 cards and their key designations ( Figure 2 [English only]):