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Questions tagged [nvme]

NVMe is a communications interface/protocol developed specially for SSDs.

Communication with mass storage has often changed. From MFM and ESDI to SCSI, P-ATA, SAS, SATA or even directly attached to the PCI-e bus. The standard used in most recent computers often was SATA. SATA is fast enough for classic harddrives but has a relative high overhead. This does not matter much for hardrives which still have to reposition their heads, which takes significant time.

Solid state storage however has no such need and the current SATA/AHCI protocol limits it needlessly.

NVMe is designed to take advantage of the new solid state drive technology, resulting in improved performance.

In oder to boot from a NVMe SSD you need firmware (e.g. BIOS or UEFI) which understands the protocol. Without this you can still use the drive as long as you have the driver for your OS, but you cannot boot from it.

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Can you connect an M.2 SATA to an M.2 NVMe port?

As people already know they are physically compatible, you can plug an M.2 SATA (aka M+B key) into an M.2 NVMe (M key). My question is will it work?
unom
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What 68-pin connector is this on my 2.5" solid state drive?

I have a Samsung PM983 2.5" SSD drive but I have never seen a connector like this. Would like to use it but unsure of what I need to connect. Can anyone assist?
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Why is NVMe better than ATA?

SATA M.2 SSDs use SATA on the physical layer and ATA as software protocol for data transmission. NVMe M.2 SSDs use PCIe on the physical layer and NVMe as software protocol for data transmission. I was told that in this question. Of course PCIe is…
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How to securely erase an NVMe SSD

It's generally accepted that SSDs cannot be securely wiped by writing patterns to the drive, due to features such as wear leveling and over-provisioning, and that the most secure way to wipe a modern SSD is using the ATA Secure Erase firmware…
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Are external M.2 NGFF controllers compatible with M.2 NVMe drives?

Are there M.2 controllers, that do not support NVMe? I am trying to understand, if an external M.2 USB controller will work with the M.2 NVMe drives I have. The drive spec says "Supports M.2 (NGFF) drive of any capacity". Does that mean it is not…
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SSD with write cache buffer flushing turned on is way slower in AS SSD but not CDM

When running a benchmark using the program AS SSD on an NVMe drive, When the second checkbox seen in the image below is unchecked, the drive gets terrible write performance in AS SSD (see first benchmark screenshot below), but not in CrystalDiskMark…
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Booting NVMe drive with a bootloader

I'd like to use an NVMe drive paired with a PCIe adapter as main system disk. Unfortunately, I have a mainboard (X79) whose BIOS does not support booting NVMe drives. I was wondering if I can install the system (either Windows or Linux) on the NVMe…
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Understanding M.2 protocols

(Some things I say in this question are false. Don't forget to read the accepted answer.) First I want to say that there is no SATA software protocol for data transmission. SATA CD drives, SATA HDDs and SATA SSDs use SCSI as software protocol. Many…
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Installing Windows 7 on an m.2 NVMe drive?

I have an Asus Sabertooth Z170 motherboard, with a Samsung 950 Pro m.2 NVMe drive on it. I've heard in the past that installing Windows 7 on an NVMe drive was a significant amount of work. Its now August 2016, is it still difficult? I've seen…
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Adaptor from NVMe M.2 SSD to SATA?

I am trying to upgrade the storage: The existing storage is a 256GB SSD, model Samsung PM871b M.2 2280, installed on an adaptor to SATA, and I guess it is Next Gen Form Factor. I purchased a 1TB SSD in NVMe M.2, model Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus NVMe…
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Do I have to initialize my new SSD before performing backup and partition?

I bought a new NVME SSD to use as my primary/boot drive. My old SSD is going to still be in my PC and be used as extra storage. I installed the NVME SSD into my PC. It doesn't show up in my file explorer, but it does show up on disk manager. It says…
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How does NTFS Compression impact performance on nvme SSDs in Windows 10 on 2021 hardware?

I set up a File History backup nvme ssd in my laptop and wanted to share the results of a quick CrystalDiskMark benchmark with NTFS File and Folder Compression enabled and disabled. See answer below.
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Booting Windows off M.2 NVMe doesn’t work even though it is recognized by the BIOS on a dual boot machine

Currently I have a dual boot setup where the two options are booting Windows 10 from my M.2 NVMe or from my other SATA SSD. When I remove the SATA SSD, I cannot directly boot from the NVMe. The drive is recognized in the BIOS but it is not present…
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NVMe vs PCIe SSD : Are they same?

My motherboard is Gigabyte B360M D3V which has the following: 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA and PCIe x4/x2 SSD support) SSD which I'm considering is: Corsair MP510 240 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive Is the…
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Why do NVMe enclosures constantly heat up even when no I/O process is happening?

I was trying out different external Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C enclosures for a 2TB Samsung EvoPlus NVMe SSD. My goal is to achieve high write/read speed but in a portable package, for the workflows specific to my needs. A common problem with all these…
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