Other SATA - M.2 2280 Adapters

LocoMoto

DEVOURER OF BAKED POTATOES
Original poster
Jul 19, 2015
287
335
Hey y'all!

So I've been thinking a lot about these, so I wanted to check if any of you have used them to save physical space in builds as compared to 2,5" drives for instance!

If you have, did you try out a few different ones for stability and performance differences?

If you have some knowledge regarding the circuit board components, what would you say you could be warning signs for a bad adapter or what should you look for at that level?

 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,827
4,902
These are very simple circuit boards because they provide a 1:1 signal. The three electrical components on there are for the power delivery. I would guess these are to allow safe hot-swapping which an M.2 drive doesn't allow (as standard) as far as I know.

So there isn't much that you can do wrong with these. Do mind that there are SSDs that without their casing are even smaller than that PCB:


Samsung EVO 750

(Dutch source) https://be.hardware.info/reviews/66...-en-250-gb-ssd-review-het-goedkopere-broertje
I doubt it gets smaller than this without being M.2 directly. With some standoffs and custom power cables, you could easily stack these every 10mm and have a Terabyte of storage in something the volume of a single cell power bank.

There is smaller like SATA DOM (Disk On Module) but generally their performance is more like a decent USB drive and they cost more, plus require a specific cable to work.

@Aibohphobia may have more to add, he was looking into this a while ago.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: LocoMoto

LocoMoto

DEVOURER OF BAKED POTATOES
Original poster
Jul 19, 2015
287
335
Oh god, looking up the pcb size of most SSDs is gonna be time consuming lol, the 850 EVO's lower capacities also seemed to be that small size, although then 1TB got longer which kinda makes the width even less attractive
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,827
4,902
If you indeed need larger capacity SSDs, this changes. Though if they can plop 1 or 2 TB on an M.2, I don't see why they can't on a PCB inside a metal box. Usually pricing is a determining factor for this, though I can believe some 500GB SSDs should also be pretty compact inside their casing.
 

LocoMoto

DEVOURER OF BAKED POTATOES
Original poster
Jul 19, 2015
287
335
Though if they can plop 1 or 2 TB on an M.2, I don't see why they can't on a PCB inside a metal box.
The 2,5" form factor is huuuge, they can easily increase depth to fill up that space when they need higher capacities instead of having to rely on the height and build up in another dimension.
That's how I see it, price as you said, with M.2 they're pretty much forced to use height.


Don't forget that these adapters are for SATA M.2s - not PCIe/NVMe M.2s.
At first I thought that would be obvious when I read it.. then I thought about religion and politics and realized that it's good you mentioned it!