usb to M.2 NVME?

[Nightblade]

So, what the title says, I'm trying to essentially take a M.2 M key drive and connect it via usb so that I may clone the drive.

Its my current windows drive, and I've been having issues with it not being very stable, and simply wish to buy a different NVME drive to replace it. I've already RMA'd it before, and simply do not wish to bother with trying to RMA it again, as that would require the hassle of cloning it onto a spare 3.5" drive, then sending it in, waiting another week for a drive from a company that I no longer trust with using as a main drive. Then cloning the drive back on to the new one, and most likely have a similar issue crop up yet again.

At first, I looked at the M.2 enclosures, but they only support B or B+M. They do not support M Key drives.

So, I got a great idea, having recalled the external pcie boards that have become popular with miners, I thought of using a M.2 adapter in conjunction, but I noticed it only uses usb 3.0, so file transfers would be really slow.

I also thought of using a thunderbolt enclosure, but my PC currently only has usb 3.1 gen 2 ports(with the rest being gen 1), and no thunderbolt ports. In order for this to work, I would have to get a converter.


The last option would be to take out my spare B+M drive and since that port also supports M drives, use it, but it is somewhat of a pain to get out, as its buried under my onboard sound card which is on a riser itself. The main reason I don't want to do this is I would essentially not be able to use the old drive at all with this option.
Any suggestions?

 

[whum]

I went down this rabbit hole a few weeks ago with a bad nvme m.2 drive and inability to use it in the computer. I had a very hard time finding anything that was sub $150 and readily available. Most googling seemed to confirm this.

My only real suggestion, and it is a sort of wonky one, is to check out this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073W65QX6/?tag=theminutiae-20
m.2 nvme to 2.5" sata adapter. I asked on the questions section whether it would work with my ego 960 nvme m.2 and whatever rep responded from startech seemed to imply that it would. I don't know 100% though -- sad to say I still have not tried this.

Anyway, what you could possibly do is either use this in a laptop if you have the space, or even take the usb connecter from one of those small 2.5" external hard drives, and try connecting the nvme drive inside the adapter, to this. Again, I have yet to try this, so you'd have to be willing to sink 30 bucks on amazon for the adapter. But if it doesn't work, returning should be somewhat easy. best of luck.

 

[Choidebu]

Why don't you boot linux or some other recovery live usb, then image the nvme drive to a usb disk? How big is your windows installation? If it's less than 64gb...

On another note, for those m2/pcie extender that uses usb cables, it won't work cause it only uses the cables for its availability and feasibility, internally they don't communicate as usb protocol would. In fact working as pcie->usb->pcie, if such thing exists, would be stupid as you basically downgrades the speed and adding useless communication and translating layers.

 

[SeñorDonut]

I went down this rabbit hole a few weeks ago with a bad nvme m.2 drive and inability to use it in the computer. I had a very hard time finding anything that was sub $150 and readily available. Most googling seemed to confirm this.

My only real suggestion, and it is a sort of wonky one, is to check out this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073W65QX6/?tag=theminutiae-20
m.2 nvme to 2.5" sata adapter. I asked on the questions section whether it would work with my ego 960 nvme m.2 and whatever rep responded from startech seemed to imply that it would. I don't know 100% though -- sad to say I still have not tried this.

Anyway, what you could possibly do is either use this in a laptop if you have the space, or even take the usb connecter from one of those small 2.5" external hard drives, and try connecting the nvme drive inside the adapter, to this. Again, I have yet to try this, so you'd have to be willing to sink 30 bucks on amazon for the adapter. But if it doesn't work, returning should be somewhat easy. best of luck.

I don't see any kind of advanced chips on there, looks like it's just a pass through converter with some power filtering or something. This adapter isn't even for SATA, it's for U.2

To my knowledge, conversion from NVMe to USB or SATA is impossible. Your best option may be to use something like this, but it requires a spare PCIe slot. Looking at the build in your signature, I can see that you have neither integrated graphics nor bifurcation (it's a bit of a pain to do anything without a video signal), so you may have to get one of those USB display adapters.
However, it may be easier to just use the rear M.2 instead of going through all those loopholes. The B key drive can just be shoved in an adapter that allows you to use it as a normal 2.5" SATA drive, in fact I use that exact drive with this adapter in my rig because my motherboard is too old to have an M.2 slot.

 

[changguangyu]

usb c(thunderbolt) to m.2 nvme

 

[whum]

I don't see any kind of advanced chips on there, looks like it's just a pass through converter with some power filtering or something. This adapter isn't even for SATA, it's for U.2

To my knowledge, conversion from NVMe to USB or SATA is impossible. Your best option may be to use something like this, but it requires a spare PCIe slot. Looking at the build in your signature, I can see that you have neither integrated graphics nor bifurcation (it's a bit of a pain to do anything without a video signal), so you may have to get one of those USB display adapters.
However, it may be easier to just use the rear M.2 instead of going through all those loopholes. The B key drive can just be shoved in an adapter that allows you to use it as a normal 2.5" SATA drive, in fact I use that exact drive with this adapter in my rig because my motherboard is too old to have an M.2 slot.

Good to know, thank you. Not well read enough to know why NVME to SATA is impossible, but I do see that stated often so I guess I will wait a few years to see if external nvme adapters somehow become more available, at least.

 

[VegetableStu]

usb c(thunderbolt) to m.2 nvme

OP's looking for regular USB ._. thunderbolt and USB are incompatible protocols.

USB-C can carry a thunderbolt signal, but if the host only does USB then it won't work.

 

[Nightblade]

Thanks for the help guys. I think i will just get something like the Akitio Node and combine it with an m.2 expansion card like @SeñorDonut mentioned.

 

[changguangyu]

OP's looking for regular USB ._. thunderbolt and USB are incompatible protocols.

USB-C can carry a thunderbolt signal, but if the host only does USB then it won't work.

USB 3.1 Gen2 to NVME
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/nvme-to-usb.7810/

 

[VegetableStu]

yeah that's a recent development. maybe OP has an answer now!