Samsung Spin Laptop - does the M.2 socket support anything besides SATA?

[gw13007]

I'm adding an M.2 SSD to my Samsung Spin (NP740U5L-Y02US) laptop.

Samsung's limited specs say the M.2 supports "SATA3", but the socket has only one key notch, which I thought indicated that it might support PCIe or NVMe as well. See photo:

Is SATA3 the best throughput I can get for this laptop? I want to get the fastest SSD possible.

The chipset is Intel Skylake.

Thank you!

Best regards, George.

 

[knowledge2121]

You can insert an M.2 SATA into that port and it would work...the port's shape isn't the determining factor...the controller is...

 

[knowledge2121]

Best way to know is to contact the Samsung support...

 

[knowledge2121]

You can also go to BIOS settings...you can see whether it supports SATA or PCIe....you can choose either SATA or PCIe for the M.2 option...If there is no option then it might mean it is SATA only...

 

[gw13007]

Ask the manufacturer!? Oh yeah, I did that, but they gave me the "wrong answer", i.e. they just quoted the spec sheet ("SATA3").

Maybe I'm a pipe-dreamer, but I'm thinking this recently released (Fall 2016) model might have NVMe or PCIe on that M.2 connector.

I don't know, maybe with a non-Samsung BIOS update or something? The Motherboard Skylake chipset supports them, so what else do we need to make the M.2 do what it's meant to do!?

Great idea about checking the current BIOS settings...maybe a clue in there...(I will post if so). Thanks! -gw

Update: the BIOS is unusually simplified. Nothing about the M.2 capabilities. I also tried some system info utilties, such as SIW and CPU-Z, the former of which had a lot of information, but did not quite answer the question, AFAIK. I think I might have to flip a coin on this one...and maybe send back the new SSD if it doesn't work. Maybe buy both to speed up that process. Thanks again for your help and please post any more ideas.