1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,000 You know, I rarely, if ever, have a chance to get bored 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,160 because whenever I feel it coming on, 3 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:07,880 all I need to do is fire up a web browser 4 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:09,880 and then descend into what I call 5 00:00:09,880 --> 00:00:13,120 a related products black hole 6 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:17,940 until I find something so mind-bendingly weird or stupid 7 00:00:17,940 --> 00:00:20,840 that I know that I simply must have one 8 00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:23,920 so I can try it out and share it with you guys. 9 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:27,520 And because my websites of choice for these descents 10 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:32,140 are ones like Taobao, AliExpress, Deal Extreme, and eBay, 11 00:00:32,140 --> 00:00:37,100 it is usually quite affordable and doesn't take that long. 12 00:00:37,100 --> 00:00:40,400 So without further ado, 13 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:43,700 I present to you my latest find, 14 00:00:43,700 --> 00:00:48,700 the DDR4 memory to M.2 SSD drive adapter. 15 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:52,240 How does it work? 16 00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:54,940 Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, 17 00:00:54,940 --> 00:00:58,340 probably not the way that you'd expect. 18 00:00:58,340 --> 00:01:00,100 But I'm sure what you were expecting 19 00:01:00,100 --> 00:01:02,580 was this segue to our sponsor, GlassWire. 20 00:01:02,580 --> 00:01:04,860 With GlassWire, you can instantly see your current 21 00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:06,860 and past network activity, detect malware, 22 00:01:06,860 --> 00:01:10,060 and block badly behaving apps on your PC or Android device. 23 00:01:10,060 --> 00:01:13,480 Use offer code Linus and get 25% off GlassWire 24 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:24,220 at the link below. 25 00:01:24,220 --> 00:01:25,720 Okay, so what we've got here, 26 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:28,020 if the product name is anything to go by, 27 00:01:28,020 --> 00:01:32,880 is a DDR2 M.2 hard disk adapter card 28 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:36,880 sated to M.2 NGFFB key memory slot SSD expansion card. 29 00:01:37,300 --> 00:01:40,950 So what I gather from all of that 30 00:01:40,950 --> 00:01:45,450 is that we are adapting a DDR4 memory slot 31 00:01:45,450 --> 00:01:50,450 to an M.2 SSD drive slot. 32 00:01:50,470 --> 00:01:52,410 So I guess we should probably go get 33 00:01:52,410 --> 00:01:56,790 one of each of those things and give this a shot, shall we? 34 00:01:56,790 --> 00:01:59,210 Okay, so we've got our test bench, 35 00:01:59,210 --> 00:02:01,870 we've got our M.2 SSD, 36 00:02:01,870 --> 00:02:05,350 and we've got our bizarre adapter. 37 00:02:05,350 --> 00:02:06,630 So I'm gonna go ahead and pull out 38 00:02:06,630 --> 00:02:08,330 one of my memory sticks here. 39 00:02:08,330 --> 00:02:11,630 And actually, before we put this in, 40 00:02:11,630 --> 00:02:15,250 let's install an SSD on it. 41 00:02:15,250 --> 00:02:17,990 So they helpfully include this screwdriver. 42 00:02:17,990 --> 00:02:21,070 Put that into the, uh-oh. 43 00:02:21,070 --> 00:02:26,360 Oh, we seem to have a slight problem here, Houston. 44 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:31,880 This does not fit in. 45 00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:34,180 How about if we try it the other way? 46 00:02:34,180 --> 00:02:37,220 No, even though it kinda looks like it'll go in, 47 00:02:37,220 --> 00:02:39,140 that still doesn't work. 48 00:02:40,410 --> 00:02:42,650 So what could be the problem here? 49 00:02:42,650 --> 00:02:47,570 I mean, other than that this is completely insane. 50 00:02:47,570 --> 00:02:50,590 All right, so we've missed something here. 51 00:02:50,590 --> 00:02:53,330 We did a bit of an explainer on this a while back, 52 00:02:53,330 --> 00:02:54,990 but don't blame me for not watching it. 53 00:02:54,990 --> 00:02:55,830 It was kind of boring. 54 00:02:55,830 --> 00:03:00,030 But M.2 is just a physical slot, 55 00:03:00,030 --> 00:03:03,270 and it can actually accept drives 56 00:03:03,270 --> 00:03:07,210 that use both the newer NVMe protocol 57 00:03:07,210 --> 00:03:10,770 and the older SATA-type drives. 58 00:03:11,270 --> 00:03:14,350 All we need is a SATA M.2 drive 59 00:03:14,350 --> 00:03:17,950 with the correct keying for this type of slot. 60 00:03:17,950 --> 00:03:21,170 So now that we're equipped with that, 61 00:03:21,170 --> 00:03:24,030 let's try again, shall we? 62 00:03:24,030 --> 00:03:26,850 So here's our WD Blue. 63 00:03:26,850 --> 00:03:29,010 You can see that, aha! 64 00:03:29,010 --> 00:03:32,700 Indeed, this does install now. 65 00:03:32,700 --> 00:03:33,680 Go ahead and grab our screw. 66 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:34,580 Oh, look at that. 67 00:03:34,580 --> 00:03:37,900 Our free screwdriver is even, oh! 68 00:03:37,900 --> 00:03:38,880 It's even magnetic. 69 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:41,500 Not very magnetic, mind you, just a little magnetic. 70 00:03:42,420 --> 00:03:45,860 Okay, so there it is. 71 00:03:45,860 --> 00:03:47,800 It feels a little like complete madness, 72 00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:56,650 and maybe it is, but hey, isn't that why we're all here? 73 00:03:56,650 --> 00:04:03,160 Fire it up, shall we? 74 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:04,820 Oh, this is actually my first time 75 00:04:04,820 --> 00:04:06,820 using my test bench in the new office. 76 00:04:06,820 --> 00:04:08,320 I need to turn on my UPS. 77 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:10,240 I need to plug in my UPS. 78 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:11,640 Hey! 79 00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:18,890 There we go, all right. 80 00:04:18,890 --> 00:04:20,730 All right, you crazy little adapter. 81 00:04:20,730 --> 00:04:21,930 Show me your magic. 82 00:04:21,930 --> 00:04:29,900 Reveal to me your secrets. 83 00:04:29,900 --> 00:04:30,900 Okay, so as we'd expect, we're down to, oh, wow. 84 00:04:30,900 --> 00:04:31,740 All right. 85 00:04:31,780 --> 00:04:33,260 We're down to 24 gigs of RAM 86 00:04:33,260 --> 00:04:36,580 because we did remove one of our eight gig sticks. 87 00:04:36,580 --> 00:04:39,500 And as far as our storage drives go, 88 00:04:39,500 --> 00:04:43,540 we've got a whole lot of nothing going on here. 89 00:04:43,540 --> 00:04:48,740 Perhaps then that's why they included this. 90 00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:51,760 I think it was supposed to be red, 91 00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:54,340 but it actually ended up kind of pink, didn't it? 92 00:04:54,340 --> 00:04:57,200 Ah, SATA cable in the package. 93 00:04:57,200 --> 00:05:00,600 So let's shut her down and plug this baby in. 94 00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:02,580 Okay, so now that we're just using a SATA cable, 95 00:05:02,900 --> 00:05:06,000 we don't expect it to show up as a normal SATA drive, 96 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,000 but the thing is there's still nothing. 97 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:10,080 Nada. 98 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:11,820 All right, so here's the thing. 99 00:05:11,820 --> 00:05:14,020 There are actually a lot of different ways 100 00:05:14,020 --> 00:05:16,400 that an adapter can function. 101 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:18,320 So you know how if you buy a travel adapter 102 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:20,040 for your electronic devices, 103 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:23,580 there are the bulky ones that actually convert 104 00:05:23,580 --> 00:05:27,280 from 220 volts to 110 volts 105 00:05:27,280 --> 00:05:31,080 versus the simple ones that just physically change 106 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:32,320 the shape of the prongs on your device. 107 00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:34,320 So if you want to change the shape of the prongs 108 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:35,650 on your device to fit into another socket, 109 00:05:35,650 --> 00:05:38,790 well, those rely on the user to double check 110 00:05:38,790 --> 00:05:43,210 if their device has a universal input switching power supply 111 00:05:43,210 --> 00:05:45,490 kind of like this one. 112 00:05:45,490 --> 00:05:50,010 So the same kind of rules apply for computer adapters, 113 00:05:50,010 --> 00:05:53,210 and there are a number of different main kinds. 114 00:05:53,210 --> 00:05:56,590 The first one is what I call physical adapters, 115 00:05:56,590 --> 00:05:58,290 and these are very simple. 116 00:05:58,290 --> 00:06:00,390 Actually, here, I can grab one right now. 117 00:06:00,390 --> 00:06:01,630 This right here is a USB-C adapter. 118 00:06:01,630 --> 00:06:02,110 This is a USB-C adapter. This is a USB-C adapter. 119 00:06:02,110 --> 00:06:02,350 This is a USB-C adapter. This is a USB-C adapter. 120 00:06:02,350 --> 00:06:02,390 This is a USB-C adapter. This is a USB-C adapter. 121 00:06:02,390 --> 00:06:02,410 This is a USB-C adapter. This is a USB-C adapter. 122 00:06:02,410 --> 00:06:02,770 This is a USB-C adapter. This is a USB-C adapter. 123 00:06:02,770 --> 00:06:03,530 This is a USB-C adapter. 124 00:06:03,530 --> 00:06:03,790 This is a USB-C adapter. 125 00:06:03,790 --> 00:06:03,950 This is a USB-C adapter. 126 00:06:03,950 --> 00:06:04,310 This is a USB-C adapter. 127 00:06:04,310 --> 00:06:05,390 And here, you can plug in a USB type A 128 00:06:05,390 --> 00:06:07,630 to USB Micro B adapter cable. 129 00:06:07,630 --> 00:06:10,230 And while Micro B does actually... 130 00:06:10,230 --> 00:06:11,410 This is fun fact. 131 00:06:11,410 --> 00:06:14,130 Have an extra conductor in the tip. 132 00:06:14,130 --> 00:06:16,670 It's only for sensing if a device 133 00:06:16,670 --> 00:06:18,730 that would normally be the target 134 00:06:18,730 --> 00:06:20,770 is supposed to act as a host. 135 00:06:20,770 --> 00:06:24,530 So this functionality was built for USB on the go, or OTG, 136 00:06:24,530 --> 00:06:27,790 and allowed you to plug accessories like network cards 137 00:06:27,790 --> 00:06:30,090 into devices like phones and tablets. 138 00:06:30,090 --> 00:06:32,350 For the vast majority of use cases though, 139 00:06:32,350 --> 00:06:35,010 that extra pin lies dormant. 140 00:06:35,010 --> 00:06:39,690 And all this cable does is run the same four conductors, 141 00:06:39,690 --> 00:06:42,610 power, ground, and then two data wires 142 00:06:42,610 --> 00:06:45,130 to two different shaped plugs. 143 00:06:45,130 --> 00:06:48,190 No modifications to the signal whatsoever 144 00:06:48,190 --> 00:06:49,910 are actually taking place. 145 00:06:49,910 --> 00:06:51,570 The second main kind of adapter 146 00:06:51,570 --> 00:06:53,410 is a little bit more complicated. 147 00:06:53,410 --> 00:06:56,830 I'm gonna call these signal mode adapters, 148 00:06:56,830 --> 00:06:58,270 for lack of a better term. 149 00:06:58,270 --> 00:07:02,130 These take some connector and convert it into another one 150 00:07:02,130 --> 00:07:06,550 that is totally different, but natively supported. 151 00:07:06,550 --> 00:07:08,010 These types of adapters 152 00:07:08,010 --> 00:07:10,930 tend to be relatively inexpensive still, 153 00:07:10,930 --> 00:07:13,950 thanks to the fact that the processing is being done 154 00:07:13,950 --> 00:07:17,190 on the computer or the device side. 155 00:07:17,190 --> 00:07:19,050 The last main adapter I'm gonna talk about 156 00:07:19,050 --> 00:07:22,590 is what I will call a complete adapter. 157 00:07:22,590 --> 00:07:26,970 These take an entirely unrelated signal 158 00:07:26,970 --> 00:07:31,410 and then actively convert it to something else in real time. 159 00:07:31,410 --> 00:07:32,130 An example of that is this. 160 00:07:32,130 --> 00:07:37,130 So this would be something like an HDMI to VGA adapter. 161 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:43,380 HDMI has no legacy analog mode of operation 162 00:07:43,380 --> 00:07:48,380 and a VGA display device has zero understanding whatsoever 163 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:49,960 of digital signaling. 164 00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:54,000 So these types of adapters tend to be more expensive 165 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:56,080 due to the required processing power, 166 00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:57,840 like there will be chips inside. 167 00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:00,480 They tend to be bulkier for the same reason, 168 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:01,640 and they also tend to be more expensive. 169 00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:05,220 They also tend to be directional, only working one way. 170 00:08:05,220 --> 00:08:08,360 So this one will take the HDMI port on your laptop 171 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:11,440 and convert it to a VGA cable for that projector 172 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:12,840 in the old conference room, 173 00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:15,940 but it would not go the other way around. 174 00:08:15,940 --> 00:08:17,940 It's also common for these to require 175 00:08:17,940 --> 00:08:20,580 an external power source in order to function, 176 00:08:20,580 --> 00:08:24,380 depending on what type of connection is being converted 177 00:08:24,380 --> 00:08:28,530 and whether it has power pins that can be utilized. 178 00:08:28,530 --> 00:08:30,560 So back to the topic at hand then. 179 00:08:30,560 --> 00:08:31,560 This device is a VGA adapter. 180 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:35,400 This device was far less interesting 181 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:40,060 than I had initially hoped right after I clicked on it. 182 00:08:40,060 --> 00:08:43,420 The geek in me would have absolutely loved to see 183 00:08:43,420 --> 00:08:48,420 some kind of crazy way to use a high-speed memory interface 184 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:52,280 with a standard SSD. 185 00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:55,920 The issue is that such a product would have to have been 186 00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:59,480 designed from the ground up for that type of access, 187 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:01,400 like Intel's Optane DIMMS, 188 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:05,900 that they actually, I think, just finally started releasing, 189 00:09:05,900 --> 00:09:09,560 because a normal computer would have no idea 190 00:09:09,560 --> 00:09:12,840 what to do with a storage device plugged into a memory slot. 191 00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:16,480 The interfaces are absolutely nothing alike. 192 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:18,960 Once I accepted that my pipe dream wasn't happening, 193 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:21,220 I decided I would still be pretty happy 194 00:09:21,220 --> 00:09:24,500 with having my drive powered by the memory slot 195 00:09:24,500 --> 00:09:26,880 with only a SATA data cable required 196 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:28,280 in order to get it working, 197 00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:31,280 which is to say that I was pretty disappointed, 198 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:35,400 when I figured out what was actually going on here. 199 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:38,240 And I kind of wondered why they bothered 200 00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:40,140 to mount this thing on a DIMM at all, 201 00:09:40,140 --> 00:09:43,300 because if you look closely near the pins here, 202 00:09:43,300 --> 00:09:46,760 you'll actually see that none of them are connected 203 00:09:46,760 --> 00:09:49,780 to any traces on the printed circuit board, 204 00:09:49,780 --> 00:09:54,200 which means that we're pretty much just wasting 205 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:56,160 the gold plating on these connectors, 206 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,400 and we could have just as easily double taped this thing 207 00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:01,260 to the side of another component, 208 00:10:01,260 --> 00:10:04,340 or left it hanging off of the cables, 209 00:10:04,340 --> 00:10:06,440 making this, I would say, 210 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:11,440 somewhere in between a type one and type two adapter, 211 00:10:11,460 --> 00:10:14,380 because we're pretty much just taking these pins 212 00:10:14,380 --> 00:10:15,300 and converting them, 213 00:10:15,300 --> 00:10:18,100 it looks like we're doing a little bit of something to it, 214 00:10:18,100 --> 00:10:20,260 to these pins over here. 215 00:10:20,260 --> 00:10:23,280 The good news is that once it's all hooked up correctly, 216 00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:24,900 our drive does indeed show up. 217 00:10:24,900 --> 00:10:26,540 Here's our 500 gig drive, 218 00:10:26,540 --> 00:10:29,200 and we can probably even boot to it. 219 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:33,380 So M.2 SATA folks, there it is. 220 00:10:33,380 --> 00:10:35,060 I'm just a little disappointed, 221 00:10:35,060 --> 00:10:38,040 because I had hoped there was a little bit more 222 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:39,460 exotic technology going on, 223 00:10:39,460 --> 00:10:44,460 and this is pretty much just a simple physical adapter. 224 00:10:45,700 --> 00:10:47,190 Oh well. 225 00:10:47,190 --> 00:10:49,770 Our sponsor for today's video is Massdrop, 226 00:10:49,770 --> 00:10:54,690 featuring the Massdrop X Beyerdynamic DT-177X GO headphones. 227 00:10:54,690 --> 00:10:56,770 So Beyerdynamic, if you're not familiar with them, 228 00:10:56,770 --> 00:11:00,070 is a world renowned German 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