How to Install M2 SSD on Laptop
You can now buy M2 SSD in laptops from brands such as Crucial, Samsung and more. M2 SSD are huge in size which is why the name is often shortened to m2. Though it is more stable than a regular SATA II SSD. It comes in both form factors of SSHD and mSATA. There is still some confusion about which one to buy. We will explain them in details below.
Basic Description
SSHD: It is an upgraded version of the mSATA form factor. This drive uses the PCI-Express (PCIe) interface for the data and power transfers. Unlike traditional SATA drive, there is no need of mechanical connections to the motherboard. Thus there is less interference and cooling. This drive is more expensive, than mSATA because of the extra complexity. In comparison to mSATA, the M2 SSD performs slower than mSATA.
M2: M2 is an improved version of mSATA. M2 drives can be found in larger sizes, which gives them better performance. For instance, M2 has drives of up to 4 TB and greater. M2 drives consume more power, as compared to mSATA.
What are they and Why we need them?
A lot of laptop manufacturers are introducing new and improved version of their latest and older laptops. These newer notebooks typically have more RAM and faster processors as compared to their predecessor. And hence we need more performance to cope with such heavy workloads. While a regular SSD may be able to cope with the huge workloads, but it will get overheated when your system heats up. Hence, you might need a better solution.
A good SSD is a solid and reliable solution. In fact, it is the best solution. It helps the system to perform much faster than the standard storage solutions. And to make sure that the SSD is working as expected, you need to periodically test it. One of the ways to do so is to check its endurance. For this, you need to know the endurance of your drive. It is the combined number of reading and writes cycles a drive can withstand. The best SSD manufacturers report the endurance rating in terms of ‘hours of endurance’.
You can use a drive with a minimum of 100,000 hours of endurance. However, you can’t be 100% sure of its endurance. So, it is a good idea to buy SSD with a maximum of 300,000 hours of endurance. The best SSD manufacturers also recommend a minimum amount of 1TB of storage for that capacity.
Additional Technical Terms:
Some drives come with a disk image (DMI) that is specific to your motherboard. Hence, you will need a driver for the particular drive. You can find the latest firmware in the latest driver package.
A reason for this is that most of the motherboards only support /dev/sda6. /dev/sda7 – Disk Model: A storage device that offers more than one physical device and many virtual devices.