M.2. Please Just Standardize
M.2 sockets and their modular versatility.
I detest dwelling on dates but for the sake of accurate assistance to any future forum furore liable to rely on the meanderings above, below, left or right, it’s probably best I should mention it was 20:32 on the 14th of the 1st of 2015 when these characters emerged on an arcane IPS panel and any relevance they have since lost is the sole responsibility of the readers and researchers. Aren’t you glad I didn’t divulge that disclaimer in a font visible to nothing but a Harris Hawk with bifocals hovering behind the Hubble Space Telescope.
Firstly, let’s re-establish why no card based vessel, not least those hitherto inspected, was able to receive and initialize every member of M.2’s feisty foursome and furthermore, acquaint ourselves with these blazingly brisk but exhaustively enigmatic digital archivists.
We’ve already been introduced to the Plextor and precious little has altered. A PCI-E SSD that will strive its hardest to please in a socket that allocates it two lanes of second tier bandwidth 2.0.
The Crucial Stick (CT256M550SSD4) replaces the SATA equipped Toshiba (THNSNH512GDNT), familiar to those who partook in past paragraphs. My reasons for a substitution this late in the game are justified, as shall become apparent before too long. Like the Toshiba, all its transfers were conducted over the SATA bus at a comparatively measured pace. It’s measurements and notches are indistinguishable from the Plextor’s with both the “M” and “B” keys present and each could inhabit the the same type of socket.
I hasten to add at this juncture that as of April 2014, virtually the stone age, no M.2 connectors, be they on motherboards or expansion cards, had pins “populated” or “blocked off” in both the M and B key positions.
Just in case you’ve forgotten, because I certainly have, the B key by itself defined a SATA destined M.2. A solitary M key showed the SSD was built to supply a stunning four course “express” service and lastly, M and B keys together keys meant the module was either SATA or PCI-E based, but with the opposing key added to enable compatibility with dual purpose hosts. In this instance a PCI-E drive would be restricted to two lane communication owing to its missing “B key” contacts.
For reference, I have never once glimpsed an m2 SSD or socket with only the B key cut or corresponding pins purged and can only theorize that if they ever existed, it would have been during the interface’s earliest stages of development.
Suffice it to say that every SSD and slot we’ll be examining hereafter is physically interchangeable, making things encouragingly simple and repugnantly complex. You’ll find out why.
Samsung’s XP941 is another well schooled campaigner who has enjoyed a credible reign as M2s grand master. Depending on its host, always assuming they could spare four lanes to field its sustenance, it could shift 1.4 Gigbytes of a user’s digitized life laundry per second.
Lastly, a début of historic significance and perhaps the most sensationalised solid state sequel ever to enter the ranks of rapid binary transference. For months, fraternities of Flash philanders had lustfully speculated over the merits these byte sized data wafers would draw from PCI-E’s third and supremely resourceful remake. Their opportunity to observe merged in the slender guise of Samsung’s SM951 , though sadly, consumers could only ogle from afar at the omnipotent OEMs for whom the drive had been faithfully forged and was to remain a unique privilege.
With our brotherhood of bit brandishing micro bruschetta completed, the time has come to determine, once and for eternity, who and what was prepared to work with which and whether a leisurely half turn around our life giving M class star has yielded the slimmest shaft of clarity.
I shall not chance to elaborate with further linguistic embellishments for fear of courting irreversible insanity. Indeed, such is my reluctance to sully nourishing information with artificial rhetoric and alliterative floridity, that I dare not venture to distribute that which I am compelled to in any format other than one armour plated against pretentious verbosity. Fortunately, even my myriads of monumentally messy fact-deficient musings can be lent credence and dignity. Just take a deep breath and watch.