M.2 SSD plugged into SATA vs pure SATA SSD

[jkl2k2]

I'm planning on adding an SSD to my PC. My PC is a prebuilt (now discontinued) Lenovo Erazer x510 with a Lenovo Sharkbay motherboard of the Intel Z87 Chipset. There is a SATA hotswap bay with a SATA slot (M key).

My question is, would I be better off buying an M.2 SSD such as the Samsung EVO 970 even though I can't take full advantage of its power (from what I can tell M.2 is compatible with SATA???), or am I better off getting an older SSD built only for SATA like the Samsung PRO 860?

It's really hard to find any good info on the motherboard of my PC, sorry!

[Sapph]

EVO 970 is a PCI-E M.2 NVMe drive.
Meaning it uses PCI-E lanes instead of SATA interface for transferring data.
And so, requires an M.2 slot that has access to PCI-E lanes.

[Omega]

The 970 Evo is a NVMe drive not a SATA one. A SATA M.2 drive would be the 860 evo M.2.

M.2 is the slot, it's both capable of supporting PCI-e and SATA. But it's up to the manufacturer of the motherboard to decide which it supports. Some M.2 slots do both SATA and NVMe, others only SATA.

Don't bother with Samsung Pro drives, you will be a dropping a heafty premium on these drives for basically nothing.

NVMe is capable of significantly faster speeds then SATA, however these drives are more expensive. I would just get a normal 2.5" 860 evo.

[Viper]

An M2 slot is a small connector about an inch wide. Here is a picture of an M2 NVME card. M2 slots will be right on your motherboard on newer motherboards.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=PcctV7Ow&id=E28BBA2D93CA13CFD4D4DBF289EA04216F0459BE&thid=OIP.PcctV7OwPOLCF9dJcgW1UwHaD6&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fthetechiesguide.com%2fmedia%2f2017%2f04%2fStorageReview-WD-Black-PCIe-SSD-Side.jpg&exph=450&expw=850&q=m2+pcie+slot&simid=608026926400736127&selectedIndex=105&ajaxhist=0

You can also get a riser card that has an M2 connector on it that will plug into a small PCIe slot if your motherboard has one

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=acWpY2CK&id=D0FB1AD1A67D438CF2B9F4301324E79F8F0CF977&thid=OIP.acWpY2CKae61CRelmVKr4gHaDn&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.servethehome.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2015%2f01%2fM2-PCIe-x4-adapter-m2-slot-600x293.jpg&exph=293&expw=600&q=m2+pcie+slot&simid=607989401301356507&selectedIndex=1&ajaxhist=0

[nullable]

https://hardforum.com/threads/nvme-m-2-ram-drive-raid-sata-iii-ssd-game-load-time-comparisons.1911914/

An 860 evo m2 SATA vs an 860 evo 2.5 inch SATA would perform identically. An NVMe drive like the 970 evo (which I own) is faster on paper. But for most general computing, gaming, loading programs, booting windows it doesn't end up being faster than a SATA SSD. There are very specific use cases where you get the benefits of NVMe speed. Large media creation, moving large amounts of data from NVMe to NVMe, etc.

And to be honest I knew this when I bought my 970 evo, but in a moment of weakness I did it anyway and if I had to do it over again I'd get an m2 860 evo that's double the size (of course after my 500GB 970 evo, I still have 3TB of SATA SSDs, so no pity for me).

[Talby]

Originally posted by Omega:

...I would just get a normal 2.5" 860 evo.

Agree, unless you are video editing, running VMs or other I/O heavy apps the speed increase will barely be noticable. Just finished my 2600x build with the good old 860 evo, crazy fast as it is.

[C2Dan88]

You can use an adapter if you want to, but with SSD's they dont need to be mounted

I just lay mine in the drive bay I dont secure it.
Other methods are velcro, cable tie, or double sided tap.