NVMe M.2 and USB adapter - which to choose?

Hello,

I pulled a SSD from a laptop with specification "Samsung PM961 MZVLW512HMJP - solid state drive - 512 GB - PCI Express 3.0 x4 (NVMe) | MZVLW512HMJP-00000" btw it is an M-KEY.

The full spec: https://www.cnet.com/products/samsu...gb-pci-express-3-0-x4-nvme-mzvlw512hmjp00000/

Now it's clear that this drive is not NVMe SATA (is there even such a thing as NVMe SATA?) but NVMe PCI-Express based, should an USB adapter with description "M.2 M-Key NVME SSD Type-C USB" suffice to read/write to this SSD or should I look for something with different specification or what to focus on?

I always found the new NVMe/M.2/SATA/PCIE a bit confusing so any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Kind of miss the good old days when the drives were either clearly PATA or SATA and nothing else mattered, if it was SATA - any SATA2USB adapter worked...

Thank you very much.

 

Most USB to NVME adapters as well as PCIE to m.2 adapters will NOT read SATA m.2 drives (e.g. drives limited to 500 MB/s).
You need an adapter that specifically states that it supports SATA m.2 devices (e.g. a "combo" slot). If it doesn't specify SATA m.2 support, assume it does not work, although there is no technical reason for someone not to support it, besides cost.

Of course a USB Adapter supporting a SATA m.2 drive should be trivial, they just have to wire it to support it as a mass storage device. It's actual PCIE slot adapters that are extremely problematic, because a SATA drive simply won't work because the BIOS has no way to see it via the SATA interface without a custom boot loader driver (no motherboard SATA lines otherwise wired to it). That's why onboard "combo" m.2 slots will actually disable an onboard SATA drive slot if you plug in a sata m.2 drive, since that's the only way the BIOS can see the drive (has to use a switching diode to connect it).

 

Biased on https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-PM961-Polaris-512GB-MZVLW512HMJP-00000/dp/B06XJ95YVR This is NVME not SATA so, I would go with https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N48N5GR which has a coupon making it $39.95 right now which is about the lowest price on it.

I've tested a good handful of these devices and this one has the least amount of issues and fastest speeds.

M.2 is the socket size
you have B and M or B+M options on some motherboards that support both.



The bottom pic is your drive. The B+M keys are shown in the M.2 SATA as some desktop boards will allow for both options NVME/SATA while one or both slots may work for the M.2 being inserted.

The Samsung drives have SM/PM versions for the same drives one is a retail designation and the other is OEM for MFG of systems. I have had a couple of the PM series between a laptop and the drive I'm running in my server as well. Testing in the pluggable w/ USB-C 10gbps cable resulted in ~600MB/s WRITE / ~800MB/s READ in actual file copies. Crystal disk synthetic testing max it out @ 10gbps because of the port limit but, within my laptop drive to drive testing maxed out at 1.5GB/s between 2 NVME drives.

 

@John66 choose a USB adapter that supports both NVME and SATA. It may be more expensive, but also much more useful for different situations.

 

If the OP doesn't have SATA M2's like most of us hoarders then it doesn't matter if it supports SATA format drives.

 

Price difference between NVME single protocol and NVME+SATA dual protocol enclosures is negligible. OP may face a SATA drive someday, or want to sell the enclosure later. In any and all circumstances dual protocol enclosure is better than single protocol. I believe there is no point purchasing inferior product when price is about the same.

 

You're talking swiss army knife and I'm going with the scalpel. Right tool for the right job.

Having the option for both is good for nerds dealing with both platforms frequently but, the average person isn't hoarding drives of different tech and needing to hook them up randomly for data retrieval.

 

You're talking buying with blinders on. The future is unknown. @Starlight5 shows the correct path.

 

SATA = OLD
NVME =NEW
NEWER = ???

Things don't typically atrophy when it comes to technology. We're not going back to running systems on floppy disks.

 

Your comparison implies that dual protocol enclosure is inferior to single protocol. It is not, in any way.

SATA has been around for 18 years, NVME for 9 years. Neither are going anywhere.

 

Now if you were talking about something like this -> https://www.amazon.com/Rocketek-Dual-Bay-Duplicator-External-Function/dp/B0911V3WY1

I would be on board. Dual PCIE(NVME) / NGFF (SATA) though presents some issues when it comes to the chips / controllers being used with them. Testing several different options showed issues with both VL / JMS slowing down and over heating quickly.

Sure, you can pick up a dual protocol enclosure for about $25 or if you want less issues / better transfer speeds go with the one I mentioned. I went through ~5 different makes of these things testing for performance with different cables and drives to find the most stable one for repeated use and not just benchmarking it with synthetic testing but real transfers.

The VL/JMS based controllers had inconsistent results from not showing up properly in DM as an external drive to flapping while pushing/pulling data from the drive.

 

More like $20 for a good design with RTL chip. Or cheaper on websites like eBay and Aliexpress.

Add SSDs becoming uncharacteristically hot even in open air enclosures, and/or unresponsive. Many USB to NVME (and USB to SATA) enclosures have these problems. They are in no way specific to dual protocol enclosures.

 

Thank you all for your help - I eventually bought the "M.2 M-Key NVME SSD Type-C USB" and it works on the Samsung PM961 MZVLW512HMJP - solid state drive - 512 GB - PCI Express 3.0 x4 (NVMe) | MZVLW512HMJP-00000" (M-KEY)

For the record I already have the NVMe(SATA) to USB3 adaptor

 

Can you post a link to which one?

 

Certainly - my apologies:
https://www.newegg.com/orico-m2pg-c3-enclosure/p/0VN-0003-001K2

 

I tried a similar one in design while looking for the best performance w/o breaking $50 threshold the SSK model

Keep an eye on the temps as you'll probably run into heat soak issues with sustained transfers. https://crystalmark.info/en/download/