Author Topic: Is there an adapter to use SATA drives on hardware that uses tiny M2 SSDs?  (Read 3035 times)

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Offline cdevTopic starter

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I have an fairly recent vintage thin client that is intended to be used with M2  low capacity SSDs that I would like to use with bigger hard drives, and/or bigger 2.5 inch SATA SSDs . I want to use it as one might use a bigger computer, possibly adding some soft-RAID approach to make it more reliable. What I am hoping for is some means of using  SATA hard drives. This computer likely does not have a PCIe slot but it may have pcie available via a funky micro connection currently occupied by a wifi card its a highly nonstandard wifi card thats easily removed. It also has some internal USB sockets and I suppose as it can and has booted from one of them I may be able to use one of my USB to SATA adaptors internally too, boot to that and then mount any external sturage thats it reaches via USB? But thats likely a bit funky. What I guess I am looking for is some kind of adaptor thats stable and robust.

Does anybody know of such a thing or have any ideas for me? I have a USB to SATA adaptor, and it can boot off of it, as a last resort I could likely use that too?
« Last Edit: November 11, 2021, 02:07:40 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Online RoGeorge

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Re: Is there an adapter to use SATA drives on hardware that uses tiny M2 SSDs?
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2021, 02:19:33 pm »
Have you googled for "SATA to M2 adapter"?

Online Ranayna

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Re: Is there an adapter to use SATA drives on hardware that uses tiny M2 SSDs?
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2021, 02:35:59 pm »
M.2 is just the connector. It alone does not say anything about the protocol running over it.
Common for M.2 nowadays is PCIe, used for NVME drives.
There is also SATA over M.2 though.

Depending on what you M.2 slot supports, the required adapter can be very different.

For M.2 SATA it is not much more than an electrical adapter:
https://www.delock.de/produkte/1089_M-2/62517/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

For M.2 NVME you would need something like this:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/255133743875?hash=item3b6727fb03:g:hIoAAOSwfuZhPzVY
This is essentially a PCIe SATA Controller card in M.2 form factor.

Both just found by googling, no recommendation. I have no personal experience with such adapters.
 
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Offline macboy

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Re: Is there an adapter to use SATA drives on hardware that uses tiny M2 SSDs?
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2021, 01:49:04 pm »
The WiFi card is likely in a A/E keyed slot. This carries PCI-e (two x1) and USB rather than PCI-e (one x4) and SATA like the much more common M key. You can find adapters to break out the PCI-e and USB, but the system's BIOS/EFI might not support anything other than the specific WiFi card. The USB part is no problem, but if the firmware doesn't configure the PCI-e interface then no operating system can see the device. I faced the same problem trying to add a PCI-e slot to a recent mini-PC as well as Dell laptops.
 
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Offline Doctorandus_P

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Re: Is there an adapter to use SATA drives on hardware that uses tiny M2 SSDs?
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2021, 06:03:45 am »
Why bother at all?
 
SSD's are mass produced and cheap while such cables are much lower volume specialty products.
I would not be surprised if the cable itself would be more expensive then a new SSD.
 


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