Motherboard specs - capacity for M1 SSDs?

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The discussion centers on the specifications of motherboards regarding their support for M1 and M2 SSDs. M1 SSDs utilize SATA connections, while M2 SSDs can operate over both SATA and PCIe interfaces. The AsRock B450 M Pro motherboard can support a combination of SSDs, including 4 SATA drives and 2 M2 drives, with specific configurations for each type. The physical orientation of M2 SSDs is noted as important, as they are mounted flat against the motherboard. Overall, while M2 drives offer higher potential speeds, the actual performance gain for typical office tasks may be minimal compared to traditional SATA SSDs.
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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?
 
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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. )
 
Stephen Tashi said:
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.
Stephen Tashi said:
(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.
 
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sysprog said:
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.
 
Stephen Tashi said:
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?
 
pbuk said:
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.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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