Looking for reliable M.2 NVME 2242, yes seriously... 2242.

[SecCon]

This is a bit of an oddball in regards to NVME M.2 disks. You will find the 2242 as SSD, but not so much as NVME.

Explanation of M.2 2242 and related quirks: The M.2 interface (delock.com)

The question is not really about finding one to buy but buying a reliable device. Toshiba and other well reputed brands used to have them, but can't find those anymore.

You can find others on Ebay under a few manufacturers called Netac and KingSpec and some more. Question is, do one dare to buy it? Can anyone say anything about these brands?

Links to product on their respective web sites and some other links of interest.

- Netac n930es | WikiPedia Netac article | ReviewMeta: Netac: 9,540 Reviews of 40 Products - ReviewMeta.com

- KingSpec m.2 SSD NVMe 2242 128gb 256gb 512gb | M2 PCIe 1TB ssd SATA III 6Gb/s | Internal Solid State Drive Hard Disk for computer Laptop – Kingspec Tech | ReviewMeta: Kingspec: 1,774 Reviews of 23 Products - ReviewMeta.com
( something similar has actually been reviewed here: KingSpec NE-256 256GB M.2 2242 NVMe SSD Review - ServeTheHome )

Having read above mentioned test one would of course be reluctant to buy one of these KingSpec devices and use it as an OS drive or anything that requires performance. Fortunately I am not. I only need it because it is the only format that fits the intended usage. (If anyone is curious about that, let me know and I shall elaborate on the "why" of this need...).

I never heard of these brands, any advice?

 

[i386]

Toshiba and other well reputed brands used to have them, but can't find those anymore.

Toshiba is now kioxia.

There are 2230 & 2242 nvmw m.2 ssds from:
Western Digital: sn530, 256GB
Sabrent: Rocket Nano 512GB-2TB
Kioxia: BG4 and BG5 client ssd, 128GB-1TB
SK hynix: bc711 128GB
Samsung: PM991 256GB

I never heard of these brands, any advice?

Personally I'm not a fan of ssds with "unknown" controllers and vendors without a reputation for firmware updates. I would stay away from them and look for more known brands.

 

[abq]

Yes, please let us know 'why' and your application .

 

[SecCon]

Yes, please let us know 'why' and your application .

Laptop Lenovo P52S has a combined slot for WWAN card or NVME card. I am putting a second NVME there.

@i386 Thanks a lot. That is exactly what I was looking for but did probably not know where to look for it. I should have remembered Toshibas name change, heard of it before. I did see the WD drives though, forgot about them.

I did search for the Samsung ones but could not find them on their site...?

Never mind, I guess I should search more on Amazon..

Amazon.com: Sabrent 512GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2242 DRAM-Less Low Power Internal High Performance SSD (SB-1342-512) : Electronics

 

[i386]

I did search for the Samsung ones but could not find them on their site...?

samsung pm and sm skus are for oems

 

[mrpasc]

Laptop Lenovo P52S has a combined slot for WWAN card or NVME card. I am putting a second NVME there.

Does this Lenovo really support NVME protocol with this slot? Did similar with several Dell Laptops ( Latitude 5290 2-in2, Latitude 7450) and they only worked with PCIE AHCI NVME. WD SN 520 was my way to go for.

 

[SecCon]

@mrpasc
Yup, there is a disco at the Lenovo forums from a while back. Since the slot is connected to the PCIE controller, it is indeed NVME, and not ssd.

P52s-with-2nd-M-2-ssd-in-WWAN - English Community - LENOVO COMMUNITY

Also somewhat specified in the device documentation, but not as clear as one might have expected.

I do not think you can normally combine AHCI with NVME ...? Those are native to SATA and PCIE respectively... Dunno what Dell did, but it should not work with standard components.

That is also why you can not find something like a 2'5 inch enclosure for 2 M.2 NVME drives, but it does work fine for two non-nvme M.2 drives.