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REVIEWS<br />
& RATINGS<br />
M.2 SSD roundup:<br />
Tiny drives deliver huge<br />
performance<br />
BY JON L. JACOBI<br />
NO, M.2 (PRONOUNCED M-dot-two) is not a government spy<br />
organization or secret project. It’s a small-form-factor (SFF) multipurpose<br />
connector designed to replace the small mSATA and mini-<br />
<strong>PC</strong>Ie slots commonly used in laptops. As such, M.2 isn’t designed<br />
strictly for storage, (it supports USB, SATA, and <strong>PC</strong>Ie), but storage is a<br />
large part of what’s driving its adoption—even on the desktop.<br />
Say what? The thing is, M.2’s <strong>PC</strong>Ie connectivity has coincided nicely<br />
with the migration of SSD drives to <strong>PC</strong>Ie, to sidestep the 600MBps<br />
limitation of the SATA bus. The marriage of <strong>PC</strong>Ie and the SSD has<br />
resulted in uber-fast storage for your <strong>PC</strong>.<br />
When I say uber-fast, I’m talking nearly four times the speed of SATA.<br />
Yup: 2GBps. It’s hard to describe how smoothly your system runs with<br />
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