Is there a difference between these two 850 EVO's?

[kurthalamue]

What is the difference if any between these two?

Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive

The price is the same and both show as compatible with my build on pc part picker.

 

[bignastyid]

One is a 2.5" SATA and the other is M.2-2280.

 

[Geekwad]

Different form factor. One is made to interface with SATA (this is a traditional drive), and the other looks more like a tiny expansion board. They are very close to being the same thing performance-wise, but the way they connect to your motherboard is different. M.2 uses PCIe lanes, so depending on your motherboard, can affect the PCIe lane assignments you have currently.

 

[kurthalamue]

Thank you both for the help.

 

[affinitydesigns]

If the previous answer was not clear, the first is a 2.5" SATA drive which would plug into the SATA ports on your motherboard and require SATA power. It can also be bottlenecked by SATA at about 500Mbps read and writes. The second drive, M.2, requires having a M.2 port on your motherboard in which to seat the card. This opperates over the PCI lanes and is not bottlenecked as much as SATA so you can see it perform faster and does not require additional power.

 

[kurthalamue]

If the previous answer was not clear, the first is a 2.5" SATA drive which would plug into the SATA ports on your motherboard and require SATA power. It can also be bottlenecked by SATA at about 500Mbps read and writes. The second drive, M.2, requires having a M.2 port on your motherboard in which to seat the card. This opperates over the PCI lanes and is not bottlenecked as much as SATA so you can see it perform faster and does not require additional power.

Thanks! Always good to learn more. The one I'm looking at has an M.2 so I will be going that way.