AI Term of the Moment
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Definition: M.2
A small expansion card that holds a solid state drive (SSD) or communications controller such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Introduced in 2013, M.2 cards were initially deployed in tablet and laptop computers but later migrated to desktops. Modern motherboards include M.2 sockets, and adapters retrofit old computers (see below). Originally known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), M.2 supports PCI Express (PCIe), SATA and USB. See U.2, PCI Express, mSATA and Mini PCI Express.
Five Sizes
M.2 cards are 0.87"/22mm wide, but lengths vary:
Dockcase External M.2 SSD
NVMe on M.2
Old mSATA and New M.2
M.2 Sockets On the Motherboard
Key IDs
No M.2 Socket on the Motherboard?
Five Sizes
M.2 cards are 0.87"/22mm wide, but lengths vary:
Inches Millimeters
1.18" 30mm
1.65" 42mm
2.36" 60mm
3.15" 80mm
4.33" 110mm
Connecting via USB and holding a 30mm M.2 SSD (bottom), the Dockcase has a 1.25" screen (top), an unusual feature for an external storage drive. It also has an internal cache that holds data being written to the SSD. When turned on, PLP Charging (top) means "power loss protection" is charging capacitors so that if the drive were abruptly disconnected from the computer, there is sufficient power to write any remaining data in the cache to the SSD storage. See cache.
This 80mm M.2 card contains a terabyte SSD. NVMe SSDs on M.2 cards connecting via PCIe reached eight terabytes (8TB) in 2020. The pen is for size comparison. See NVMe.
The top SATA SSD is on an mSATA card. The bottom SATA SSD is on M.2, which replaced mSATA in new products. See mSATA.
Modern desktop PC motherboards have dedicated M.2 slots as in this Asus example. This is looking down between the graphics card and heat sink.
M.2 has 12 plug and socket "key" configurations to ensure that the motherboard supports the interface on the card. The M and B keys are the most popular.
No problem. Insert the M.2 card (top) into an adapter (bottom) that plugs into a PCI Express (PCIe) slot on the motherboard. After insertion, the card is bolted to the adapter or motherboard using the hole at its far end (leftmost 80mm hole in this example). See PCI Express.