On an "b" key m2, the pcie lanes use pins 12 to 19 on the ssd, whereas on an "m" key they use pins 59-66. Since you installed the ssd upside down to make the m key look like a b key, there was no way to transfer data. Hopefully wifi was disabled because you removed the wifi card, and not because something got shorted when the m2 drive was installed upside down.
I think the WIFI doesn't work b/c the slot I was trying is connected to the real WIFI slot, and the computer was trying to read the ssd as a WIFI card... but anyway, besides the point. Do you think the 2242 version of this will work?
It looks like the slot is not typical. It's not "Non-standard", it's just not the de-facto standard. I'm trying to do the same upgrade, and based on other posts the slot is not a SATA slot but rather is an actual PCIe slot, but it is a B-key connector. This is actually nonstandard, as others have said SATA drives are usually B-key while PCIe drives are almost always M-key.
There's one exception though. There are PCIe NVMe (Not SATA) SSDs that are sold as PCIe x2 drives, which have a "B+M" key. One typical example of this is the Intel Optane 16GB/32GB cache drives (they actually simply appear as NVMe drives to the host machine). Basically, the pins that are missing to allow for the B-key slot are the pins that would normally provide the third and fourth PCIe lanes. There is no technical reason that a standard PCIe x4 drive should not work, except that it won't fit and I haven't been able to find any adapters to convert M key to B+M key (this actually should be possible since you could use 2230 size drives...) PCIe devices by design will simply use as many lanes as they're given, so if you were able to adapt an M-key drive to an x2 B+M slot, it'd just use only two PCIe lanes (and have accompanying lower throughput).
So basically, you need an SSD that uses PCIe but only uses two lanes, and thus has a B+M key. Search eBay for "2242 x2 name" and you'll get a few results. There's a KingSpec drive shipping from China that should work. You could also just peruse the NVMe SSD listings - I did find a Lite-On drive sold by someone in the US that has the B+M key but the label clearly reads "NVMe PCIe". I almost wonder if this might have been an option from Dell, since Lite-On has been a major manufacturer of SSDs for Dell.
r72019
6 Professor
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5.3K Posts
1
September 5th, 2020 13:00
On an "b" key m2, the pcie lanes use pins 12 to 19 on the ssd, whereas on an "m" key they use pins 59-66. Since you installed the ssd upside down to make the m key look like a b key, there was no way to transfer data. Hopefully wifi was disabled because you removed the wifi card, and not because something got shorted when the m2 drive was installed upside down.
kattykat
1 Rookie
•
3 Posts
0
September 5th, 2020 17:00
I think the WIFI doesn't work b/c the slot I was trying is connected to the real WIFI slot, and the computer was trying to read the ssd as a WIFI card... but anyway, besides the point. Do you think the 2242 version of this will work?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33031512658.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.2e733c00aeh2qR&mp=1
speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
0
September 6th, 2020 17:00
M2 is a connector not a form factor.
B keyed is SATA so its NOT PCI-E and its NOT working.
MSATA is not PCI-E
kattykat
1 Rookie
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3 Posts
0
September 7th, 2020 10:00
ok, very confused now... Can you link me to something that will work?
fmillion
5 Posts
0
September 21st, 2020 11:00
It looks like the slot is not typical. It's not "Non-standard", it's just not the de-facto standard. I'm trying to do the same upgrade, and based on other posts the slot is not a SATA slot but rather is an actual PCIe slot, but it is a B-key connector. This is actually nonstandard, as others have said SATA drives are usually B-key while PCIe drives are almost always M-key.
There's one exception though. There are PCIe NVMe (Not SATA) SSDs that are sold as PCIe x2 drives, which have a "B+M" key. One typical example of this is the Intel Optane 16GB/32GB cache drives (they actually simply appear as NVMe drives to the host machine). Basically, the pins that are missing to allow for the B-key slot are the pins that would normally provide the third and fourth PCIe lanes. There is no technical reason that a standard PCIe x4 drive should not work, except that it won't fit and I haven't been able to find any adapters to convert M key to B+M key (this actually should be possible since you could use 2230 size drives...) PCIe devices by design will simply use as many lanes as they're given, so if you were able to adapt an M-key drive to an x2 B+M slot, it'd just use only two PCIe lanes (and have accompanying lower throughput).
So basically, you need an SSD that uses PCIe but only uses two lanes, and thus has a B+M key. Search eBay for "2242 x2 name" and you'll get a few results. There's a KingSpec drive shipping from China that should work. You could also just peruse the NVMe SSD listings - I did find a Lite-On drive sold by someone in the US that has the B+M key but the label clearly reads "NVMe PCIe". I almost wonder if this might have been an option from Dell, since Lite-On has been a major manufacturer of SSDs for Dell.