How do you choose an M.2 SSD?

M.2 SATA drives and M.2 SSD NVMe drives are becoming the standard recommendation for new PC builds and upgrades, as they are becoming less expensive and more popular.

The first consideration when planning to purchase an M.2 device for a computer is whether it has one or two M.2 plugs. If a laptop is compatible with M.2 specifications, it will have the physical interface, and the device's operating system should already include the required Advanced Host Controller Interface drivers need to enable installation of the M.2 storage card. It may also be necessary to make an adjustment in the device's basic input/output system so that it can recognize the M.2 storage.

If the computer will be used mainly for daily tasks or gaming, then an M.2 SATA drive should suffice. However, if the user needs the best computing speed or requires fast sequential read and write speeds for use cases such as editing 4K video or large file transfers, then an M.2 NVMe drive should be selected.

If the motherboard does not have an M.2 slot, then the user can get a M.2 drive on a card, which vendors like Asus or MSI provide. These put the M.2 drive on a PCIe expansion card, enabling the use of an M.2 through the PCIe slots.