Conufsed about M.2/NGFF

So today I did some reading up on M.2 standard for SSDs, and I got even more confused. As I understand, M.2 (or NGFF) is a new standard that has both 2-notch and 1-notch connectors.

Now, a friend of mine has a ProBook 430 which has this WWAN card, which can be replaced by a M.2 SSD:



Now, I'm assuming a regular mSATA SSD won't work in this slot, right, even though it looks like a regular old SSD? But I thought the M.2 SSDs look like:



I'm confused: How will this fit in that slot? What's going on? What's the standard here?

 

You are not confused. That Samsung SSD is too long to fit inside that WWAN slot

Here is something that would fit
Amazon.com: MyDigitalSSD SC2 Super Cache 2 42mm SATA III 6G M.2 NGFF M2 SSD Solid State Drive (128GB): Electronics

There is several types of NGFF types:
3042, 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280

They all refer to the size:
30mm long 42mm wide. 22mm long, 60mm wide. etc.

I don`t think there are any standards in size in the final specifications from IO group.

 

Wow. All right. I get it.

But will this SSD be pin compatible? The Huawei card in there has a single notch:



And that 128GB SSD has two notches. Will it even fit? This M.2 stuff is a mess. I'm guessing the ProBook that has PCIe type of M.2 slot, and that SSD is the SATA standard M.2. Is this correct? I read this here.

 

i found this thread wondering the same thing, regarding the hp zbook 14.

the slot looks like it would definitely fit the smaller ngff but i'm wondering if the longer one would also fit. i don't believe the notches are interchangeable though. 1 notch = pci-e, 2 notches = sata

 

All of them set their own standard - apparently ratified by the PCI SIG consortium. Funnily all this standards basically eliminate a standard.
Here I posted some overview of different SSD types and sockets: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...22154-lets-talk-ngff-m-2-a-2.html#post9498396

 

Your standard is probably a "socket 2 (key B) 3042 card"

 

What I don't get is why we're only doing x2 PCIe for m.2? It seems even more short-sighted than SATA6 was when it comes to SSD speeds. In raw Read/Write numbers, we seem to have already saturated it before it fully catches on.

 

Isn't PCI-Express 3.x like 1000 MB/sec so 2x would be 2000 MB/sec? That won't be saturated any time soon for a single drive.

 

What is that open socket just to the left in your image? I think you are 100% safe ordering one as it is on MyDigitalDiscounts NGFF Compatibility list. I cannot post a link because I am a vendor maybe someone can help you out with that link or search "NGFF Compatibility list"

Good Luck happy moding!

MyDigitalSSD

 

Here the linkis: M.2 NGFF SSD Compatibility List

@ MyDigitalSSD: we'rre waiting for 24x-25x G version, 128G is not enough those day LOL, Intel and others are releasing bigger capacity M.2 42mm SSD very soon, what is your plan with this?