How does a m.2 SATA III SSD differ from just SATA III?

[Winter_Wolf]

I'm new to SSD, and eyeballing a laptop to replace my old one. The stock drive is puny and the secondary drive is 5400rpm rust. But Amazon is listing drives as m.2 SATA III, which I don't really comprehend. I thought m.2 was a different tech from SATA III, but it's listing both in the title.

Honestly I probably could live without the upgrade, but it doesn't sit right that everything but the hard drives would be so much better than what I have. (Well that and having to run Win 10 Home, I'll have to shell out for Pro on top of the computer and hard drives; but that's kind of tangential to what I need to know.)

I'm aware I could have a desktop for cheaper than a laptop and with better specs, but this isn't about that and I need the mobility factor of a notebook computer because I travel a lot.

[tyckspoon]

m.2 is an update/advancement on the SATA standard; it uses a much smaller form-factor and a faster form of the connectors. Instead of a cased drive connecting with a cable, m.2 drives generally look like a PCB board (kind of like a RAM chip or a PCI-Express add-in card) with a row of exposed pin connectors. They slot directly into the motherboard, and then the whole assembly is usually secured with a bracket and tab or screw arrangement similar to how CPU chips are locked down. (On a laptop, it might just be soldered into place instead. Depends on if the manufacturer wants you to be able to replace/upgrade it.)

Which is a nice long-winded to say don't worry about it, m.2/SATA is an upgrade on whatever your previous system was using.

[Silfir]

m.2 SATA III is the same speed as 2.5" SATA III. It just takes up less space and cables.

Aren't there laptops out there with either no OS or Windows 10 Pro pre-installed?

[halfeye]

m.2 SATA III is the same speed as 2.5" SATA III. It just takes up less space and cables.

Doesn't that mean that it's a lot slower than PCIe m.2?

[Winter_Wolf]

m.2 is an update/advancement on the SATA standard; it uses a much smaller form-factor and a faster form of the connectors. Instead of a cased drive connecting with a cable, m.2 drives generally look like a PCB board (kind of like a RAM chip or a PCI-Express add-in card) with a row of exposed pin connectors. They slot directly into the motherboard, and then the whole assembly is usually secured with a bracket and tab or screw arrangement similar to how CPU chips are locked down. (On a laptop, it might just be soldered into place instead. Depends on if the manufacturer wants you to be able to replace/upgrade it.)

Which is a nice long-winded to say don't worry about it, m.2/SATA is an upgrade on whatever your previous system was using.

Maybe I'm dense or I worded my question poorly. What I want to ask, is if I have a notebook computer specced with "SATA III SSD" and SATA-something 1TB 5400rpm HDD, could I pop into the computer's SSD slot something marketed as "m.2 SATA III SSD" and reasonably expect it to function? Will it even work? Provided the stock SSD is actually removable and not soldered into place, anyway.

For example the SSD I saw (which is just an example of the type I've seen and not necessarily what I'm thinking of purchasing, my criteria are reliability and affordability, so whatever ends up rated well and cheap in the 500GB storage range)
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-E...n%3A6158693011


And now that I'm actually on my computer instead of a smartphone, let's not beat around the bush. I'm looking specifically at this: https://www.costco.com/ASUS-ROG-GL75...100341998.html, which is currently abundantly in stock at every Costco in driving distance and is in nearly every way a massive upgrade from my potato notebook. With the price drop I can actually look at buying the Win10 Pro upgrade, and still eek out enough to go a long way toward better SSD/hard drive, while being able to spread out the cost a little. And it's got a DVD optical drive in the unit, which I don't see again unless I end up spending a whole heck of a lot more money than I have in my budget. The last thing I need is more peripherals, even an external optical drive.

For rough comparison, I have an eight—or is it nine?—year old notebook running Win 7 Pro, mobile i5, and a Nvidia 610m GPU. I mean sure it's fully functional and actually plays the games I want to play (not at high settings or high FPS), but it's an eight (or nine) year old laptop; its days are numbered.

[tyckspoon]

Ah. No, drives using the m.2 form will usually be listed as such or possibly as a PCI-E drive. I would not expect that laptop to have one based on that listing; it's most likely a 2.5" drive. Those should be fairly easy to swap out, at least, if the case layout of the laptop is sensible (I won't vouch for how easy it will/won't be to backup or reinstall Windows and any of the ASUS system software you want to the new drive, tho.)

[scalyfreak]

@Winter_Wolf

Let's back up a little bit and start over. If you don't mind?

SATA is a data transfer protocol for storage drives. Essentially that's the specific language that drives speak with the ports they connect to. SATA III is the third generation of SATA protocol, and the fastest yet. It's pretty much as fast as you can get SATA at all, meaning if you want to go faster than SATA III, you need to look at other protocols. PCIe is one of them, and is currently the fastest on the market. It's so much faster than SATA it's not even funny to watch. Think hare and tortoise, for real and not the fable version.

M.2 is a storage drive form factor. The term "form factor" refers to the physical size and shape of the drive. M.2 storage drives can be either SATA or PCIE, depending on how they were made. The port for an M.2 looks exactly the same regardless of which protocol it uses, so a SATA M.2 will be a perfect fit in a PCIe M.2 port, but it will never ever work.

M.2 can also be single sided or double sided, and various different lengths. Because of this, there's lots of details to pay attention to when you want to buy an M.2 drive for a computer. Missing just one of the five important details could lad to buying a drive that either doesn't work, or simply doesn't fit in the computer at all.

Now that we've cleared that up, let's look at your question: "What I want to ask, is if I have a notebook computer specced with "SATA III SSD" and SATA-something 1TB 5400rpm HDD, could I pop into the computer's SSD slot something marketed as "m.2 SATA III SSD" and reasonably expect it to function? Will it even work?"

The answer to your first question depends entirely on the SSD your computer shipped with. (Do you know the model name/number?) The answer to your second question will be given by the answer to your first.

I looked up that ASUS laptop on their website, and their specifications flat out state that it can come with either a SATA M.2or a PCI M.2. You may need to open the laptop to find out. Pretty sure CostCo will insist that you buy it first...

Here is the thing though. In that laptop, the by far best performance boost for your money will be to remove the HDD and replace it with a standard 2.5" SATA III SSD. You can get a terabyte sized one for between $200 and $300, or often less if you find good online deals. If this was my laptop, that's what I would do.The M.2 may be allowed to become relevant later, if I feel like it. But the platter HDD would need to go before anything else is done to any gaming computer.

My professional opinion, for what it's worth. (Yes, I realize very little when you only have my word that what we're talking about here also is my job. )

[Winter_Wolf]

Well ma'am, you present an option which I hadn't really considered. Though to be honest I'm not sure entirely sure I can swing the cost of a 1 TB SSD and the Windows upgrade. Still, could be a way to go. I expect that Asus/Costco will have whatever was the cheapest way to go with the primary SSD, because it's the "budget gamer" model. But it's got the built in optical drive and it's affordable even with upgrading to a big SSD. (Hey don't sell me short, people saying 1TB is overkill; I've got 3 TB of stuff already and I'd prefer to keep copies of much of that readily available.)

In any case I was fixin' to get the computer before the new drive, but I want to be as informed as possible/practical to see how much over budget I'd end up. Still way cheaper than the 2500 dollar model.

Edit: having taken a look at the Asus site, I'm betting on straight SATA III SSD because Costco is selling the 128gb SSD/1TB HDD. Makes things easier if that's the case, hey?

[scalyfreak]

Do you need the full 1TB of space?

If you do, you may want to consider just shifting things around with a clean install and put nothing but Windows on the M.2 SSD already in there, and keep the original 1TB for storage. This costs you nothing but Windows.

Very important factor to consider: A lot of laptops that come built with an HDD and an M.2 SSD are pre-configured to use the M.2 as a cache drive. It means exactly what it sounds like. The operating system uses the M.2 as a buffer/cache for the HDD and this gives the illusion of near-SSD speeds. What makes this important is that some laptop models that are configured this way, won't let you reconfigure them. You may want to find that out before assuming that my suggested solution above is a possibility.

If you don't need the full 1TB, buy a 2.5" SSD of half that size and call it good. You can upgrade to a bigger in a few years when they have dropped even further in price.

EDIT to clarify: I saw your comment about having 3TB of "stuff" but how much of that has to be on the laptop, vs on a portable drive you connect when you need it?

[scalyfreak]

Edit: having taken a look at the Asus site, I'm betting on straight SATA III SSD because Costco is selling the 128gb SSD/1TB HDD. Makes things easier if that's the case, hey?

Cheaper at least. The PCIe M.2 cost a lot more.

That makes upgrading that capacity a more budget-friendly option, certainly. Just be on guard against the cache-only configuration I already mentioned.

[Winter_Wolf]

Cheaper at least. The PCIe M.2 cost a lot more.

That makes upgrading that capacity a more budget-friendly option, certainly. Just be on guard against the cache-only configuration I already mentioned.

Will do. Can't say I trust Asus too much lately but then again I haven't had one of theirs combust on me. And sadly for me, yes I kind of need the 1TB of space; I'd spring for 2TB if I could afford it. Lots of travel, some international. I already leave all the nonessentials and a good portion of the essentials. Such first world problems!

[scalyfreak]

Will do. Can't say I trust Asus too much lately but then again I haven't had one of theirs combust on me. And sadly for me, yes I kind of need the 1TB of space; I'd spring for 2TB if I could afford it. Lots of travel, some international. I already leave all the nonessentials and a good portion of the essentials. Such first world problems!

Okay, disregard all suggestions about going down in drive capacity. Instead I'm going to be snarky and suggest you look into cloud storage. Unless of course you travel to regions with spotty/expensive internet access.

Might be worth it to look into 2TB SSDs though. Start a wish list on Amazon, subscribe to slickdeals, or what have you. It's extremely unlikely they'll go up in price, and if you had your previous laptop for eight years, you'll still have this one in 3-4 years when 2TB SSDs are within your budget.

[factotum]

I'm kind of the opposite here. I seriously doubt that all that 3Tb of stuff you have really needs to be instantaneous access, right? 95% of it is likely to be stuff you use maybe once a day at most, and that's the sort of stuff that's far cheaper to just keep on a spinning rust drive. SSD should be reserved for files that need to be accessed often, IMHO.

[Brother Oni]

Okay, disregard all suggestions about going down in drive capacity. Instead I'm going to be snarky and suggest you look into cloud storage. Unless of course you travel to regions with spotty/expensive internet access.

I believe Winter_Wolf spends (or spent) a lot of time in China, which has different issues with internet access.

I've read of an executive who regularly travels to China and every time he goes out there, IT furnish him with a fresh installed Windows laptop and on return, they put the thing through the electronic equivalent of a strip search and a wrist deep colonoscopy exam to make sure no viruses, malware or other form of industrial espionage are present.

[Winter_Wolf]

I believe Winter_Wolf spends (or spent) a lot of time in China, which has different issues with internet access.

That's some good memory right there. Or I've said it too often. But yeah, the less electronics you take into and out of the mainland, the better. You even have to take all your power cords out of your bags at security. And I'm not going to pretend smallish electronics never go missing. An external hard drive, for example. We won't speak of the Internet or cloud storage over Chinese internet. But I've got my answers and an option I hadn't really considered before. So thanks for all the contributions, all.

[scalyfreak]

I believe Winter_Wolf spends (or spent) a lot of time in China, which has different issues with internet access.

Aaaaah, okay.

Managers I work with occasionally travel to mainland China. So that's all I need to know.