Everything you need to know about M.2 to Mini-PCIe adapter for laptops

M.2 to Mini-PCIe Adapter for old Laptop – Types, Benefit, Issues & Compatibility

Source：https://www.deskdecode.com/m-2-to-mini-pcie-adaptor-for-old-laptop-types-benefit-issues-compatibility/

Everything you need to know about M.2 to Mini-PCIe adapter
for laptops

With its Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) and using the PCIe Lanes, you can’t resist that the M.2 is the future. A lot of people don’t actually get familiar with this technology. But when you see the latest hi-tech products with better performance, it really didn’t take that much time to make you the enthusiasm.

Now you can see all the previous mini-PCIe cards are converted to the M.2 interface. As it uses the same
PCIe
technology, but because of the extra PCIe lanes support the transferring speed can get double in A/E/B Key M.2 Slot and quadruple in M Key M.2 Slot which is important for the latest performance needy devices.

M.2 SSDs
are the first one who came out in the market and after that you can see all of the mini-PCIe cards like 3G, CDMA, WWAN, HSPA, GPS, WiMAX, and Bluetooth shifted to the M.2 interface, just to fit in the new slot.

So, most of the new product comes in the M.2 interface (like new Intel Wireless-AC 9260 2230 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5 M.2 Card) where those users who have old mini-PCIe Slot in their Laptop feels a bit left out of technology.

As M.2 uses the same interface, that’s where the ‘M.2 to Mini-PCIe Adapter’
came in. With the help of this adapter, you can connect any M.2 card in your old laptop. But, mini-PCIe is mainly the smaller version of PCIe x1 Slot which can only support single PCI Lane and won’t be a problem for Network Cards, but it surely does for the M.2 SSD.

The speed of Mini-PCIe slot of your motherboard is all depend upon which generation of PCI that your laptop is working on. Using the M.2 card over an adapter will only get beneficial when you have a PCIe 3.0 or 2.0 mini-PCIe Slot on your laptop’s motherboard. Or otherwise, it won’t support most of the devices if the Mini-PCIe Slot is from Gen 1.

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And using the M.2 SSD over an adapter can cut half of the bandwidth speed because of a single lane bandwidth, and it possible that the adapter will bottleneck too. In that case, it always better to use a mSATA SSD over the M.2 for Mini-PCIe slot, as it can run on its best with the perfect connection.

#Understanding the M.2 Slot Keys

M.2 to Mini-PCIe Adapter comes in different types and buying a particular one can also depend upon the type of key your card has. Yes, you’ll need to check out the M.2 Key slot supported by your M.2 Card and then you can the buy the exact same M.2 key adapter for your laptop. To know about it better, first you’ll need to understand what the M.2 Slot Keys are; M.2 Key defines by its notch which you can see inside the M.2 Slots. There are 12 different notches and every notch has its own alphabet name (from A to M). But still most of the M.2 Keys is reserved for the future use and now it’s only four which currently being used by SSD, GPS and Network Cards. After checking your card key support, now you can buy the exact same M.2 key adapter for mini-PCIe Slot.

#Compatibility

Not a problem with small M.2 cards, but if you wanted to install 2280
full-size M.2 SSD using the adapter. Then it quite possible that you can’t find any space to put the big card in, where on the other hand some old laptops have plenty of space to fit any M.2 card as you can see in the picture;

These types of adapter mainly don’t need any drive support but the card you installed on adapter will (not SSD but all the other cards). So, make sure you downloaded the drivers first (who is compatible with your OS) before putting your money into some M.2 Card or Adapter.

There is also a possibility that the card you installed using the adapter might not show in the BIOS, but will work perfectly in the OS. And it only happens when the proper ‘Hardware Drivers’ is installed.