Question Are NVME PCIe and Sata m.2 drives interchangeable?

[go7hic13]

I'm used to upgrading m.2 and 2.5 SSDs but for the first time I'm dealing with an NVME drive I like to install a larger version of... (500GB). This would be my primary boot drive. Even though the SATA m.2 drive works or I should say fits. I'm geting fails when trying to boot. Is this simply because the nvme and sata m.2 drives are completely not compatible?

 

[rgd1101]

No. they are different, some can take both, some can only take one or the other
read the system board spec

 

[USAFRet]

Give us some more information about your system.

Desktop or laptop?
What specific motherboard?
What other drives are in this?
What drive is the OS on?

 

[popatim]

NVME uses PCIE lanes.
M2 Sata uses the same Sata connection as normal Sata drives.

The M2 interface/connector was designed to be able to offer both interfaces in the single connector (at the same time) but left it up to the manufacturers on what to actually have available on their hardware.

As rgd1101 suggests, check your motherbd/laptop specs to see what it supports.

 

[go7hic13]

Give us some more information about your system.

Desktop or laptop?
What specific motherboard?
What other drives are in this?
What drive is the OS on?

It's a ASUS TUF 505 DU Laptop w/ AMD Ryzen 7 3750 processor and a Nvidia 1660ti GPU. It came with a NMVE 256GB WD m.2 boot drive and a 1TB SATA 7200 RPM Storage Drive.

I'm upgrading to a 500GB Boot Drive and a 1TB SATA Samsung SSD. This is something I normally do and the only difference I can see is the NMVe part of the puzzle. In the Bios the system is expected to run a SATA and NVME. I originally was taking it as they both could be listed as SATA drives. And the NVME must be x2 version because it's missing 2 bits at the connector part of the m.2 drive. Which is the same as a SATA drive. Now, since I no all m.2 SATA and NMVE drives are not interchangeable I can order a WD NMVE drive with the 2 bits missing at the connector portion of the m.2 NMVE drive (which I'm guessing means x2 rather than an NMVE x4 which appears to only have one notch out of the connector).

I hope that made some sense. I'm going to try to install the NMVE tomorrow when it arrives. And switching the boot drive temporarily to the SATA SSD Storage drive. The doing a data migration to the 500GB m.2 SSD Boot drive.

As of now with the SATA m.2 drive I get a boot error and recovery options screen. Which is useless.

So I'm assuming the WD NMVe drive I ordered will work without problem as I'm guessing the laptop is expecting an NMVe m.2 instead of the SATA version. I'm thinking this is the reason for BSOD I'm getting on boot up.

 

[USAFRet]

Right. It cannot take 2x SATA drives.
It must be 1x NVMe SSD, and 1x SATA (2.5", either SSD or HDD).

 

[go7hic13]

Right. It cannot take 2x SATA drives.
It must be 1x NVMe SSD, and 1x SATA (2.5", either SSD or HDD).

How about x2 NMVe SSDs? That's what I just received in the mail today from amazon.

 

[USAFRet]

How about x2 NMVe SSDs? That's what I just received in the mail today from amazon.

No.
One of each.