M2 Sata to 2.5 enclosure questions

[djfmf]

From what I researched, there are two types of M2, the sata version and the pci-e version. both look alike in the form factor and my intentions is to put in the m2 into a 2.5" hard drive enclosure and put in my 2012 mbp. I think the top of the line SSD would be the Samsung 850 Pro, but with news of the 890 pro coming out I was considering getting an M2 and a 2.5 enclosure to make it work in my mbp. my question is if anyone has used an m2 to 2.5 inch enclosure for their mbp. speeds of the new 890 pro are supposed to be above 1000mb r/w and I'm hoping that the speeds will convert over with the 2.5 enclosure and not experience a bottle neck. any advice or suggestions is appreciated. I just don't want to buy an m2 ssd only to find out it wont work in my mbp and I end up have to make it an external. thanks for your guys knowledge. I've done research, but I need some clarification on the m2 ssd itself and the enclosure.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

From what I researched, there are two types of M2, the sata version and the pci-e version. both look alike in the form factor and my intentions is to put in the m2 into a 2.5" hard drive enclosure and put in my 2012 mbp. I think the top of the line SSD would be the Samsung 850 Pro, but with news of the 890 pro coming out I was considering getting an M2 and a 2.5 enclosure to make it work in my mbp. my question is if anyone has used an m2 to 2.5 inch enclosure for their mbp. speeds of the new 890 pro are supposed to be above 1000mb r/w and I'm hoping that the speeds will convert over with the 2.5 enclosure and not experience a bottle neck. any advice or suggestions is appreciated. I just don't want to buy an m2 ssd only to find out it wont work in my mbp and I end up have to make it an external. thanks for your guys knowledge. I've done research, but I need some clarification on the m2 ssd itself and the enclosure.

As soon as you use the SATA connection it will be limited by that, so will top out around 550mb/sec read write whatever you do. So you might as well just get the cheapest SSD around that saturates your SATA 3 and forget all this enclosures and M2 stuff it will make no difference. I would recommend the MX200 crucial series or samsung evo.

 

[g4cube]

From what I researched, there are two types of M2, the sata version and the pci-e version. both look alike in the form factor and my intentions is to put in the m2 into a 2.5" hard drive enclosure and put in my 2012 mbp.

It's a bit more complicated than what you describe:

Yes, the M.2 form factor offers both PCIe and SATA variations. They physically look similar, but the edge connector is keyed differently

But on the PCIe side, there are also 2 more variations: AHCI and NVMe. Apple's AHCI driver will support 3rd party M.2 SSD devices, but their NVMe driver will only support Apple devices only. NVMe is a newer driver protocol that provides even better performance, and is found in some of the latest Macs.

You'll have to have Thunderbolt connected peripherals to get the best performance out of M.2 devices. No one is selling bus-powered Thunderbolt enclosures without HDD or SSD inside, as certification requires that only populated enclosures can be sold retail. The few M.2 PCIe external drives being sold today are populated unless you purchase a Thunderbolt PCIe chassis and PCIe add-in card. This doesn't make for a very portable external drive.

There are a few small drives available: the 1TB LaCie Little Big Disk has 2 512GB PCIe M.2 devices inside; this requires an AC power supply, and also has a serious heat management system inside for cooling. Evidently, these high performance M.2 devices can get quite hot when writing to them for an extended period of time.

Sonnet has its Fusion Flash Drive; it's bus powered, and is only available in a 256GB version today, with a 512GB version promised "soon". It too incorporates a serious heat sink case for cooling.

Neither the LaCie nor the Sonnet uses the NVMe variations of the M.2 SSD devices. That will have to wait until Apple's drivers support 3rd party NVMe devices.