everybody's heard of m.2 ssds these
little tiny doodads that manage to be many times smaller and many times faster
than traditional computer hard drives or even regular SATA ssds but there is
understandably a ton of confusion that exists around how to choose one and
install it in your existing system so let's figure that out shall we
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before we get started though we need to differentiate between physical standards
and protocol standards this right here
is a mini DisplayPort cable and this right here is a Thunderbolt cable but
they look the same this USB type-c port is running at
USB 2.0 speeds this one is USB 3 which
can be 10 or even 20 times the speed and
this one is Thunderbolt 3 which is
faster still and comes with a host of
other capabilities so backing up then
because most cables are just a physical
electrically conductive wire connecting point A to point B nothing would prevent
a you know piece of cod hanger from connecting between a receiver and a home
theater speaker or let's say an Ethernet
cable from being used to carry an HDMI
digital video signal in fact that product exists okay but back to computer
drives again m.2 is one of several
physical connector standards that allows an SSD to be attached
internally to your computer this motherboard right here conveniently
gives us a great example of all of them
so what you're looking at right now is SATA or Serial ATA this connector
suffers from more latency because of its indirect connection to the
CPU right here is the basically dead
SATA Express standard that uses two PCI
E Lanes which are better because they're connected more directly to the CPU but
has a very bulky connector and no drive
support to speak of this one right here
is u.2 which uses four PCI El Lanes
twice as many as SATA Express but has all but disappeared outside the
Enterprise space and finally this one
right here is m.2 which has basically
one out versus the other NextGen connectors at this point thanks to its
performance it also uses a maximum of four PCI Lanes as well as its compact
form factor that allows it to be used not just for desktops but also for ultra
thin notebooks but and getting back to
the whole lesson on protocol versus physical standards most of these
physical connections support multiple
protocols that is to say more than one way for the computer to communicate with
the drive's controller over the physical wires and if you aren't using an NVMe
protocol Drive in your m.2 slot you
might not be getting the full experience so if your computer has a PCIe m.2 slot
and you can see the difference here between an NVMe capable one and an ahci
only one here they're usually labeled then it's simple you just plug it in
maybe configure a couple settings in the BIOS and poof it's Off to the
Races but then what if you don't have a
PCI Express m.2 slot on your motherboard okay well step one make sure you don't
have one some motherboards even hide
this connector on the back and it's small enough that it can be pretty easy
to miss then step two ensure that your
motherboard actually supports booting to
an NVMe Drive in general anything z97 or
x99 chipset and newer will have that
support and if it does and you still want to use a drive then you want to
pick up one of these little guys these
cards plug into a PCI E slot on your motherboard just like a video card sound
card Etc consult your motherboard's manual to find out how many lanes each
slot has and what speeds they operate at
more is better and I've got a couple different versions here Silverstone has
an NVMe only one and one that supports
both an NVMe and ahci remember that's
the same protocol as SATA over a slightly different m.2 connector that
are reasonably priced then there are more premium options like the wings from
angelbird that looks a little cooler and includes a thermal shield and pad to
keep the drive from overheating we're going to use this sp500 fisen controller
based NVMe SSD from Corsair for our demo
here once everything is hooked up you can move the mounting screw around
depending on the length of your NVMe drive and then you just need to make
sure you're running the latest ufi BIOS on your board and go through the same
steps as our previous board that supported it natively going back further
than the last couple generations of boards things get a little dicey
theoretically all the way back to p67 days you can install an NVMe SSD in one
of these PCI Express cards just like this but you won't get the full benefit
unless it's a newer one because you won't actually be able to boot from the
drive and right now NVMe drives are a little bit too expensive for most people
to want to use them as a steam library
and there is yet another wrench to throw
in the spokes of this whole ordeal while
the connector on the motherboard may be
capable of both NVMe and ahci operation
I'm not aware of any NVMe m.2 drives
that will work across either protocol so
if you have an NVMe board you want to get an mvme drive or maybe you could run
an ahci one and if you have an ahci only
m.2 slot then you will need an ahci so
more protocol overhead SSD just like
this one and don't expect to get Earth shattering performance out of it we are
working with rockat look at that it's like a spin move or whatever to give
away their cross headsets designed for
multiplatform multi-use multi-purpose use on
multi-platforms some of its features include include large 50mm neodymium
magnet drivers it comes with dual microphones one designated for PC and
one designated for mobile the mics are detachable and plug into a port on the
underside of the left ear cup and they've got quick access volume controls
memory foam ear pads a light 185 G
profile and to enter all you need to do is watch this video and enter through
the link in the video description the giveaway will run for 7 days from today
7 days so move fast so I hope that
clears things up and you guys have a better understanding of m.2 now I sure
do cuz I had to do all this research to make this
video so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video hit that dislike
button but if you liked it hit the like button get subscribed maybe even
consider checking out where to buy the drives or accessories we featured at
Amazon at the link in the video description also down there is our merch
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form which you should totally join now that you're done doing all those things you're probably wondering what to watch
next so check out our latest video right there over on Channel Super Fun I think
it's like RC car bowling or some nonsense like that pretty fun