Motherboard specs - capacity for M1 SSDs?

[Stephen Tashi]

TL;DR Summary

What language in a motherboard's specifications reveals how many sold state hard drives it can support that use the "M1" interface. Is there now an "M2" interface?

What language in a motherboard's specifications reveals how many sold state hard drives it can support that use the "M1" interface. Is there now an "M2" interface?

 

[sysprog]

M1 SSDs use SATA only; M2s can use either SATA or PCIe; with e.g. 4 SATA and 2 PCIe in the MB spec, you can run up to 6 SSDs, up to 4 of which can be M1, and any of which can be M2.

As you indicated, M.2 is a newer interface; not simply another SSD type.

Here's a link: https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/m2-vs-sata-storage-showdown.html

 

[Stephen Tashi]

I don't understand whether it's possible to read the PCI-e spec and determine from that how many, if any, M2 SSDs would be supported. From videos, it appears that M2 SSDs are mounted so the chip is "flat" (lying parallel to the motherboard) instead of perpendicular to it. So the physical orientations of the PCI-e slots are important.

(In particular, I'm considering the AsRock B450 M Pro motherboard. )

 

[pbuk]

I don't understand whether it's possible to read the PCI-e spec and determine from that how many, if any, M2 SSDs would be supported.

From videos, it appears that M2 SSDs are mounted so the chip is "flat" (lying parallel to the motherboard) instead of perpendicular to it. So the physical orientations of the PCI-e slots are important.

M.2 is a completely different form factor to 'traditional' PCIe, it doesn't matter which way round the card is lying (although it is true that M.2 cards are usually screwed down flat to the MoBo or parent card). When a MoBo spec says PCIe it is talking about slots for putting video cars, sound cards etc. in (or even RAID controllers, which could take M.2 SSDs), and when it says M.2 it is talking about slots for non-volatile mass storage (this is true in 2020 - it may change with wider use of M.2 in future).

Note it is M.2 pronounced "M dot two", not M2.

(In particular, I'm considering the AsRock B450 M Pro motherboard. )

There are a number of versions, but from the manufacturer's site for the B450M Pro4:

• 4 SATA3, 1 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4), 1 M.2 (SATA3)
  So you can plug in one fast M.2 device and 1 SATA3 M.2 device (waste of time) plus 4 traditional SATA3 drives.
• 1 PCIe 3.0 x16, 1 PCIe 2.0 x16, 1 PCIe 2.0 x1
  So you can use 1 decent graphics card plus some other stuff - if you want you can plug a NVMe PCIe daughterboard (<USD20) into one of these if you can find one that will work on PCIe 2.0.

If you can afford 2 NVMe drives you should be looking at a higher spec MoBo.

 

[sysprog]

Many adapters, including M.2 and PCIeGen3x4, are available here: http://minerva.com.tw/

 

[Stephen Tashi]

Many adapters, including M.2 and PCIeGen3x4, are available here: http://minerva.com.tw/

I'm curious whether it would be useful to replace a SATA SSD (plugged into a SATA port) on an older motherboard by using an adapter in a PCIe slot and some species of SSD on the adapter. For example, I have Gigabyte motherboards with printing that advertises "PCI Express 2.0" slot.

 

[pbuk]

I'm curious whether it would be useful to replace a SATA SSD (plugged into a SATA port) on an older motherboard by using an adapter in a PCIe slot and some species of SSD on the adapter. For example, I have Gigabyte motherboards with printing that advertises "PCI Express 2.0" slot.

I suspect that any gains, and even if it works at all, will depend on the specific adapter, MoBo, BIOS, OS and drivers. What is it that you want to happen faster?

 

[Stephen Tashi]

What is it that you want to happen faster?

I'm curious whether the reading and writing of files would go faster in "office productivity" type software - not in a demanding context such as computer games. But I'd be satisfied if using an SSD M.2 on a PCIe slot was no slower than using a SSD on a SATA port because the M.2 SSD could be re-used on a new machine built with a motherboard that had a dedicated interface for it.

 

[pbuk]

Providing it worked, it wouldn't make any noticible difference - most of the time spent loading an office file is converting from the information stored on disk (which is basically a flat text file) to the internal storarge that makes it efficient to calculate the spreadsheet/work out how many pages there are in the document/render the presentation etc, and that is CPU/RAM speed dependent.

 

[MikeeMiracle]

The potential throughput of M.2 drives is huge, these days even consumer M.2 can be several times faster than a regular SATA slot. Utter waste of money for office files I would say, it's really responce times and overwall throughput where they excel and office files are just too small to make any real difference by using an M.2 drive.