M.2 2280 slot in 14" ultranote IV (perhaps others)

[CyberW0lf]

Heya guys,

So I've been investigating SSDs for the last hour or two and discovered that there are slightly different M.2 2280 "standard" thicknesses.
Looking at the laptop, I see the ultranote supports an M.2 2280 slot, and I've found the cards provided are M.2 2280 single-sided, while other more performant SSDs are M.2 2280 D5 cards.
The "M.2" wiki indicates that a D5 has a top + bottom side of ~1.5mm.

So my main question is: does the M.2 slot in the ultranote IV (and probably others) support all the 2280 sizes (so anything from a D1 to a D5)?
I suppose a follow up question is: is this slot easy to access and so easy to change in the future (ie, in a years time when a new SSD comes out with double the performance)?

+++
CyberW0lf
+++

 

[Oussebon]

I suppose a follow up question is: is this slot easy to access and so easy to change in the future (ie, in a years time when a new SSD comes out with double the performance)?

The slot is easy to access but it's unlikely it will be worth you upgrading to an even faster SSD, in view of those being PCIe 4.0 and almost all current systems being PCIe 3.0. And SSDs like the 970 Evo, 970 Evo plus etc are only offering pretty incremental upgrades in performance at PCIe 3.0 as, certainly for max read/write speeds, we're pretty much capped.

Which SSDs are you looking at? About the fastest SSDs available are things like the 970 Pro / Evo Plus that are S3 afaik

 

[Cypher]

I would be suprised if the m.2 slot in any laptop couldnt hold a 2 sided module. unless its a really really thin machine!

As you are looking at a ultranotebook, i suspect that there is very little chance that you would take advantage of the full speeds of PCIe 4.0 and probably wont even benifit much from getting a PCIe 3.0 Nvme card.

 

[CyberW0lf]

Thanks for the replies guys - the time is really appreciated.

I was looking at the ADATA 8200 pro.
Being a gen3 x4 PCIe nvme card I thought it would be just a bit nicer than the sx6000 pro offered by pcspecialist at only ~£30 over the sx6000 ... plus any unused disk I choose to put in the laptop in the first place.
It's still a TLC instead of a SLC or MLC, but I think MLC / TLC is around the sweet spot for price/performance personally (it's not like I want to push everything to limits here - just find the spot I'm comfortable with).

Looking at the performance, the sx6000 (2100R/1500W) compared to sx8200 (3500R/3000W) for the minor price increase is a no-brainer and will actually improve what I wish to use it for (low number of VMs with occasional downloading, storing and accessing patches etc for training, compiling, etc).

Is there any way to see what motherboards are available for the laptops so that I can check their specs for possible restrictions or compatibility issues?

+++
CyberW0lf
+++

 

[SpyderTracks]

I would be suprised if the m.2 slot in any laptop couldnt hold a 2 sided module. unless its a really really thin machine!

As you are looking at a ultranotebook, i suspect that there is very little chance that you would take advantage of the full speeds of PCIe 4.0 and probably wont even benifit much from getting a PCIe 3.0 Nvme card.

It's not unlikely, intel haven't adopted PCIe 4 yet on anything, none of their chipsets support it on laptops or desktops.