M.2 Ssd

M.2 SSD

M.2 is pronounced 'M-dot-2'. These drives are designed for high-performance storage in a more slim form factor and support PCIe 3.0, SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 interfaces. The PCIe support means they can also make use of Non-volatile-memory-express (NVMe) protocol.

The NVMe protocol has a performance edge over other protocols due to a higher rate of input/output operations per second (IOPS). This decreases latency. Also, this protocol system consumes lesser power, making this an ideal drive for low power devices such as ultrabooks.

These are based on similar kind of circuitry that is used for Flash Memory such as RAM chips and USBs. The lack of moving parts makes the read and write times a lot faster than traditional hard drives. The M.2 SSD is available in different capacities and can be from 256GB to 1TB or more.

Comments

Which capacity of the M.2 SSD you choose to purchase depends on the amount of space you need.

M.2 SSDs have been getting cheaper over time but are still very expensive drives at the top end of the price range. The known brands producing M.2 SSDs include HP, SanDisk, Samsung, ADATA and Western Digital.