There are several types of Apple solid state drive interfaces

Apple computer solid state drive interface type who knows what

Interface to type there are SATA type as well as M.2 interface, to see whether it is a laptop or all-in-one machine or mini, the computer type is different, the interface is also different.

You can install a LU Master on your computer to see the interface type of your computer’s SSD.

1, open the computer browser, Baidu search “LU Master”, open the LU Master website.

2. Download the LU Master know installation package.

3. After the download is complete, install Ludwig.

4, after the installation is complete, open the LU Master click on the “Road Hardware Detection Special”, the software will automatically detect the computer’s hardware information.

5, after the detection is complete, click on the “hard disk genus information”, in the “interface” column you can see the interface type of the hard disk.

Expanded information:

Interface classification

M.2 interface, MSATA interface

Compared with MSATA, M.2 has two main advantages. The first is the speed advantage. There are two types of M.2 interfaces: Socket2 (Bkey–ngff) and Socket3 (Mkey–nvme), of which Socket2 supports SATA, PCI–EX2 interfaces. EX2 interface, and if the PCI-E×2 interface standard is used,

Maximum read speed can reach 700MB/s, and write can reach 550MB/s. And one of the Socket3 can support PCI-E×4 interface, the theoretical bandwidth can be up to 4GB/s.

macbookpro solid state drive interface type

SSD interface. According to the query bubble.com, Apple’s standard SSD for the macbookpro uses a different interface, not the common M.2 or mSATA interface, but a new SSD interface.MacBookPro is a laptop released by Apple on January 11, 2006 by Steve Jobs at the MacWorld2006 conference to replace the PowerBookG4 line.The MacBookPro was the first product to convert to an Intel core, along with the new iMac (Core)….

A question for the gods. Apple laptop SSD is M.2 interface

Not M.2 interface, is the PCIe interface, but the Apple SSD appearance is relatively small, basically can not find alternatives

Hard disk interface is divided into three kinds: SATA, M.2 (a variety of specifications) and PCIe interfaces, which SATA speed is the slowest PCIe speed is the fastest, the speed of M.2 speed estimates speed can not reach Apple’s standard it 。。。。 But the iMac mechanical hard disk is a SATA interface.

And Apple’s PCIe and standard PCIe are still not the same, so replace the SSD or buy the original ~

Hard disk interface which hard disk U.2 and M.2 interface what is the difference between [difference introduction]

At present, the solid state hard disk interface a variety of, in order to achieve faster speeds, the hard disk interface is also constantly evolving, from the mainstream SATA3.0 to the current faster M.2 and U.2 interfaces, different specifications of the hard disk will be used on the different interfaces, then the most common hard disk What are the most common hard disk interfaces? Hard disk U.2 and M.2 interface what is the difference? Here I give you a detailed introduction.

First, the hard disk interface

As one of the most important parts of the PC, the importance of its self-evident, but at the same time, the hard disk is also the most dragged part of the system, especially in the pure mechanical hard disk platform. In order to greatly improve the performance of the whole platform, the hard disk speed has to be revolutionized. To this day, HDD hard drives are still the first choice for many brick-and-mortar installations, but faster SSDs have been well received by those who have used them. In this revolution, in order to seek the fastest speed, the hard disk interface also have to follow the continuous evolution, first we first look at the hard disk mainstream interface which.

Different interfaces will be used on different sizes of hard drives:

Different sizes of hard drives, hard drive interfaces are also varied, and now can be seen at least SATA, mSATA, M.2, SATAExpress (hereinafter referred to as SATAE), PCI-E, and U.2, etc., and each interface The following will have many sub-types, in fact, this is only a part of the unmentioned there are many, such as BGA package, eSATA interface for external devices, the enterprise market with the SAS3.0 interface, accustomed to alone Apple even customized a lot of their own exclusive hard disk interface. Because they are all proprietary, I’m focusing on the interfaces we usually see most often.

1, SATA6Gbps interface

SATA is the standard specification for hard disk interfaces, in fact, the SATA6Gbps interface this statement is not standardized, the exact name is SATAIII, the interface speed is 6Gbps only, just that we are now accustomed to this statement. The SATA6Gbps interface is the most common HDD/SSD hard drive interface, and most people now buy hard drives with this interface, as shown in the following diagram:

Motherboard’s SATA interface:

SATA6Gbps interface

Pros and Cons of SATA6Gbps interface:

SATA6Gbps interface:

SATA6Gbps interface:

SATA6Gbps interface:

SATA6Gbps interface is currently the most widely used hard disk interface, the biggest advantage is that it is too mature, 6Gbps bandwidth, although compared to the new interface 10Gbps or even 32Gbps bandwidth is much worse, but the ordinary 2.5-inch SSD is not such a high demand for more than 500MB/s read and write speed is also enough to use, and the HDD hard disk development is too slow, the speed has been The HDD is too slow, the speed has been no qualitative change, in the HDD hard disk 6Gbps bandwidth is more talk about bottlenecks.

The downside of SATA 6Gbps is that there is not enough support for new technologies, such as the NVMe standard, and the relatively large size of the SSDs does not fit the trend of increasingly smaller SSDs, so 6Gbps bandwidth is not enough for a new generation of SSDs.

2, mSATA interface

SATA 6Gbps interface is not conducive to SSD miniaturization, half-height SATA devices and a little bit unpopular, so the mSATA (miniSATA) interface developed for portable devices came into being, you can think of it as a mini version of the standard SATA interface. The physical interface is the same as the miniPCI-E interface, so it is easy to confuse the two, but mSATA takes the SATA channel instead of the PCI-E channel, so it needs a SATA master.

Advantages and disadvantages of the mSATA interface:

mSATA is still very hot at the beginning of SSD miniaturization, and there are two sizes of mSATA hard drive specifications, divided into MO-300A and MO-300B, the former is divided into mSATAmini and mSATA, where the mini hard drive length and width is 30×26.8mm, the mSATA size is 51x30mm, and the thickness of one side is about 4.85mm, while MO-300B is generally 30x30mm, which is less common.

But the mSATA interface is an important process of SSD miniaturization, and still hasn’t gotten rid of some of the shortcomings of the SATA interface, such as still being a SATA channel, and the speed is still 6Gbps. The potential of the SATA interface is so much more than that, and you have to look for new means to further develop it.

3, M.2 / NGFF interface

M.2 original name is NGFF interface, it is for Ultrabook (Ultrabook) tailored to the new generation of interface standards, mainly used to replace the mSATA interface, with a compact size, mainstream performance and other characteristics. And M.2 is rich in expandability, which can improve the SSD capacity.

M.2 SSD

M.2 interface on motherboards:

Additionally, the M.2 interface can support both SATA and PCI-E lanes, with the latter making it easier to increase speeds. 10Gbps, but in the 9-series and 100-series chipset, M.2 interface is now fully shifted to PCI-E3.0x4 channel, the theoretical bandwidth of 32Gbps, much higher than the previous level, greatly enhancing the performance potential of the SSD. In addition, this interface SSD also supports the NVMe standard, and now compared to AHCI, SSDs accessed through the new NVMe standard are very noticeable in terms of performance improvement.

4, PCI-E interface

As early as the beginning of the development of SATA interface SSDs, PCI-E interface SSDs appeared, other SSDs regardless of the interface, are from SATA to the native PCI-E into, and the PCI-E interface of the SSD is directly a step, eliminating the intermediate process.

The Intel750 hard drive is the current representative of high-performance PCI-E hard drives

Similar to graphics cards, the specifications of PCI-E hard drives are divided into different levels of full height/half-height, full-length/half-length based on the length and height of the hard drive, and the most common PCI-E hard drives tend to be the HHHL half-high, half-length ones, with a length of 167mm.

PCI-E interface hard drive speed is also gradually from the original PCI-E2.0x2 towards the PCI-E3.0x4 channel, the speed also reached 32Gbps, and the early PCI-E hard drive can not be done to boot disk problem has been solved, and now most of the flagship SSDs will be chosen PCI-E interface.

5, SATAExpress interface

M.2 interface solves the problem of mSATA interface successor, SATA6Gbps interface in the 6Gbps speed after the SATA interface to continue to improve the speed of the SATA interface, the SATA-IO gives the solution is SATAExpress ( SATAE) interface.

In order to increase the interface bandwidth, the SATAE interface gave up the SATA channel and went to the PCI-E channel, they chose the PCI-Ex2 channel, specifically PCI-E2.0x2 or PCI-E3.0x2 two choices, so there are two kinds of 10Gbps as well as 16Gbps, initially it was 10Gbps mostly. Nowadays, motherboards are gradually starting to offer 16Gbps SATAE interfaces, as the number of southbridge lanes on the 100 series chipsets has increased dramatically. Whether you choose PCI-E2.0 or PCI-E3.0 solutions, the interface speed is significantly higher compared to the original 6Gbps, and the bandwidth is much less of a bottleneck.

6, U.2/SFF-8639 interface

U.2 interface alias SFF-8639, U.2 device-side interface combines the characteristics of SATA and SAS interfaces, U.2 not only can support the SATA-Express specification, but also compatible with SAS, SATA, and other specifications, the motherboard one side of the miniSAS (SFF-8643) interface on one end of the motherboard, and the U.2 cable on the device side is connected to the SATA power supply on one end and to the data port of the U.2 hard disk on the other. So you can think of it as a quad-channel version of the SATA-Express interface, which has a theoretical bandwidth of 32Gbps, which is no different from the M.2 interface.

U.2 interface on motherboard

U.2 interface SSD with cable

The good thing about the U.2 interface is that the interface bandwidth is up to 32Gbps, it supports the NVMe protocol, and even the power supply capacity has been increased, which all help to improve the performance of SSDs, but the bad thing about U.2 is that it is still new. The bad thing about U.2 is that it’s still new, and many motherboards don’t have U.2 interfaces at the moment, and there are very few consumer hard drives with U.2 interfaces, and the only ones that are currently on sale are Intel’s 750 series.

Second, what is the difference between the U.2 and M.2 interfaces

Through the above explanation, we have a deeper understanding of the hard disk interface, the following we will look at the U.2 and M.2 interface interface interface in the end what is the difference between the parameters of a comparative chart, you can be relatively easy to understand.

U.2 and M.2 interface advantages and disadvantages of comparison:

From the comparison, the main advantage of the M.2 interface lies in the compact size, excellent performance, more widely used in notebooks, ultrabooks and other portable devices. The U.2 interface has a faster, 2.5-inch better compatibility with the current SATA3.0 interface SSD, suitable for mainstream notebooks and desktop computers. But the shortcomings are, at present, equipped with U.2 interface SSD is relatively small, still waiting for maturity.