mSATA vs. M.2

What is exactly the difference between these two types of SSDs? I've heard that M.2 SSDs are supposed to be faster than mSATA but many high performance gaming laptops still use mSATA, and very few machines use M.2 sata. What exactly is the difference, and which one is better in general? Also, is M.2 sata a primary hard drive slot or more of a secondary slot such as the mSATAs?

 

M.2 has a form factor similar to mPCI-E, it is like mSATA in that regards. That being said, whether you use M.2 or mSATA as a secondary drive or primary is entirely up to you. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a primary drive bay/connector, your primary drive is theone you choose to install the OS on regardless of form factor or connector type.

 

mSATA has the advantage of one physical size and one socket type.

However, M.2 is taking over (I expect it will predominate in the next generation of notebooks) and comes in a bewildering range of socket types and card sizes as explained here. One of the M.2 socket options is PCIe which offers the potential to be faster than SATA but SATA versions of mSATA and M.2 SSDs will have the same performance if they use the same chips (rearranged as necessary to fit the board).

John

 

mSATA is a specification that allows storage to attach to mini PCI Express ports. It conforms to either SATA revision 2 or 3 specs (either 300 MB/s or 600 MB/s maximum transfer). M.2, also known as Next Generation Form Factor or NGFF, is a port designed to move either storage or connection data over PCI Express. Depending on wiring and implementation, storage attached to an M.2 port can either be accessed via standard SATA rev. 3 rates (600 MB/s), SATA Express rates (1000 MB/s), or NVMe rates (2000 MB/s).

While both mSATA and M.2 allow transfer of storage information over PCI Express, mSATA is an older and slower solution that will be phased out over the next few years in favor of M.2.

Additionally, there are 2 physical sizes of mSATA storage and 3 sizes of M.2 storage, so it is important to ensure that your system has the correct size clearances for the particular mSATA or M.2 SSD you wish to install.

 

''mSATA is a specification that allows storage to attach to mini PCI Express ports''
Yes BUT only when we takling about desktops as no one laptop in the world has OR supports PCIe x4 unfortunately.

 

Although a number of systems have M.2 slots, you're correct that none (that I know of) currently support NVMe (4x) speed. I'm guessing we'll start seeing them when Skylake-powered systems are released in a few months.

 

Here is the simple answer:

• Both mSATA and M.2 are interfaces for small SSDs. You typically find these types of connectors in laptops, but will also occasionally find them on specialized high-end desktop motherboards.
  
  
• The difference between the two connector types doesn't really matter at this point. You don't really get to "choose" which connector type you want in a laptop. Laptop manufacturers will use either mSATA or M.2, with strong trending towards M.2 in laptops these days.
  
  
• Technically, M.2 has the **POTENTIAL** to be faster than mSATA. But again, it doesn't really matter at this point, because you won't find laptops or SSDs that actually take advantage of the faster potential. And it is unlikely that a laptop you buy today with M.2 can support those higher speeds in the future, because of the way that most manufacturers implemented M.2 up to this point (i.e. Lacking PCIe connectivity and NVME support).

So basically, the difference between mSATA vs. M.2 is so negligible today, that it should not be a factor at all in deciding which laptop to buy.

 

M.2 PCIe is available now in laptops. Clevo P77xZM/P75xZM, P650Sx/P670Sx, N15xSD/N17xSD models have M.2 PCIe / SATA interfaces.

 

With how many PCIe lanes connected?

Edit: saw your post with the answer (4) in another thread.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's a total of 4 lanes. It can be one drive x4 or two drives x2. That's the P7xxZM
P770ZM http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=762&lang=en

P670SG http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=737&lang=en

N170SD http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=791&lang=en

 

Just note that a PCIe 4x card will not fit in a PCIe 2x/SATA slot. So if you intend on running two PCIe M.2 drives then either get one 4x and one 2x or both 2x because the 4x will only fit on the 4x slot. I know because I have a P770ZM in my possession at the moment with a Samsung SM951 4x PCIe M.2 SSD.

 

I don't think there is x2 there is x1 x4 and so on ..
And I don't think that somebody would install one into x1 and second into x4 .. pointless ..
I just would use x4 with that samsung SSD and that's it ..

 

Those are desktop PCIe slots. Laptops have mSATA/mPCIe and M.2 (SATA & SATA-E).

 

oh right those clevo .. well that's another marketing..
two lanes not gonna help much
only x4 lanes would have potential..

 

I am getting a little confused about m.2 formats. I want to upgrade an HP 720 G2, which accepts 2260 size drives.

Whether SATA or PCIe-based, the manual doesn't say anything explicitly. However, in the list of compatible drives I
see both types, e.g.: "120-GB, SATA-3, M.2, solid-state drive # 781852-001" and "256-GB, M.2, PCIe, solid-state drive 781853-001".

Does that mean I can buy any 2260 m.2 drives on the market?

Further, how can I determine if the notebook can use the newer NVMe-tech? I don't know any 2260 size NVMe drives, but in case the
board/UEFI supports it, I'd probably wait for one.

 

2260 drives refer to 60mm drives. So just look for "M.2 60mm" when you search for drives, and you'll find a list of compatible drives.

And yes, you can buy any capacity of M.2 drive and you'll be fine. That list of model numbers you see in the manual refer to the two specific models that were certified to be sold as a factory configuration from HP. But ignore that. Any SSD will work.

As for NVME... I promise you your laptop doesn't support NVME. We are only starting to see devices that support NVME (as in, the past few months), and we are only beginning to see supply of NVME drives. So.. You don't have NVME, and you realistically won't see it available for consumer purchase for quite a few months from now.

 

"UEFI BIOS Compliant with 2.3.1 UEFI Specification" (from 720 g2 manual)
and:

Meaning I am more optimistic regarding support, but that remains to be answered once we see 60mm nvme drives.

I wasn't concerned about capacity, more about PCIe vs SATA base. Since the list contains PCIe drives I suppose I'll be fine with a PCIe based m.2 drive (of course, 60mm)

 

Out of curiosity, are there any B/B+M keyed 2242 drives which ain't painfully slow?

 

From ASI:

B key M Key and B and M Key interfaces

The big advantage offered by mSATA and M.2 is that these SSD devices utilize the PCI-E bus rather than a SATA III connection.

The overall performance however is determined by the number of PCI-E lanes used by the M.2 device which can be PCI-E x2 or PCI-E x4. The decision to do PCI-E x2 or PCI-E x4 is determined by the motherboard manufacturer.

A “B” Keying supports PCI-E x 2 for up to 10Gbits/sec while an “M” keying supports PCI-E x4 for up to 20Gbits/sec which is both significantly higher than the theoretical maximum of 6Gbits/sec of SATA III.

pushing the performance envelop, you want to make sure you have a device that uses an "M" keying connector that uses PCI-E x4 and an "M" keying M.2 card.

Common terms for identifying the dimensions of M.2 cards include 22x42, 22x60, 22x80 or 22x110 where 22 refers to the width 22mm (Standard for all M.2 cards) and the second number refers to the length of the card in mm. You may also see the cards referenced as 2242, 2260, 2280 or 22110 for example.

http://www.asipartner.com/ASIAcademy/IntelSolidStateDrives/mSATAandM2/tabid/1081/Default.aspx

Cheers
3Fees