Update: I have changed the deal to refer to M.2 ssd's as they ran out of stock for mSATA (available for special order) and they even cancelled my order which was confirmed while they had stock.
M.2's they have 45 in stock now and at 36£ for 128GB that is one of the best budget M.2 ssd deals I have seen.
Please note that this is not a standard SSD which have been going for under 30£ for 128GB. This is an M.2 SSD used in some slim laptops/ultrabooks or as an addition to a standard hard drive.
They are usually more expensive than standard 2.5" SSD's and this is the cheapest I have seen a quality one with exception of eBay ones taken from various other machines. (and even those are very very rare).
These seem perfect for htpc builds for NUC/Brix boxes (the recent Maplin deal comes to mind) where you might occasionally want to do something more or install a couple of apps/games as well especially as it costs only about 5£ more than the cheapest 64GB I can find (which is what I have been looking for).
The M.2 version is an even better deal and now plenty in stock.
Also these are a business class versions which come with 5 years warranty.
You can use PayPal for 7p extra.
Hope it helps someone.
Latest comments (41)
Gavin01
20 Feb 16#40
im still clueless as to how you work out what they fit?! beairng in mind ive no idea at all!
be nice in a laptop or htpc system?
Nexusfifth to Gavin01
20 Feb 16#41
It varies from device to device, newer laptops support usually at least one of the standards. (to add together with a hard drive) And best way to find out is to either look at the manual of your machine, (it lists all the ports there). Or, how I usually do it, Google your model number followed by M.2 ssd or msata ssd and you usually get an answer.
There are some laptops which only take these ssd rather than 2.5" ones but those laptops usually cost enough that 128GB is not an upgrade to start with. So I see these more as options to add while keeping a hdd and then moving os to it. (That is if you are lucky enough to have a port)
For htpc, things like nuc or brix almost all have msata or M.2 slots usually in addition to 2.5 inch slot, so you can have os on this ssd and data for a server on the large hard drive, making it usable as general purpose pc as well (this is my usage scenario).
Again these are just small ssd stripped down of all the plastic and having different connectors, so your laptop/htpc needs to support it.
Ti add it to a standard size desktop pc you need an adapter unless you have a built in slot (recent mobos only).
Nexusfifth
16 Feb 16#39
On a second read of your comment I think I realise what you want to say and why the confusion arose.
You have a typo is instead of has, but that is irrelevant.
I guess you want to say that you can't just plug in an m.2 ssd in a pcie slot (where you would put graphics and expansion cards) because they physically don't match regardless of using the same protocol, so you need an expansion card.
We were talking about laptops which as a rule only ever have pcie slots designed for m.2 (ignoring the wifi card ones) so people often say pcie slot for what should be called m.2. slot as there is no ambiguity. But yes you are right that in terms of desktops it is a different thing.
fishmaster
16 Feb 16#38
Ah well nothing I can do about that evidently.
Nexusfifth
16 Feb 16#37
I never said you are wrong, I simply said I don't follow what you were talking about and I still don't.
rfu3
16 Feb 16#34
I'm not sure you can value a 5 year warranty on Sandisk products. Under warranty they wanted me to send back to the Czech Republic at my cost. Not economically viable.
Nexusfifth to rfu3
16 Feb 16#36
Interesting, never actually had a warranty claim for memory. I am pretty sure they are not quite allowed to do that...
fishmaster
16 Feb 16#35
M.2 isn't PCIe as a physical interface, it's M.2 as a physical interface. Pedantic maybe but correct.
Glix
16 Feb 16#33
Yeah, updated to f4 beta bios for gigabyte, updated to the latest frimware for the z400 which reduced the occurrences and installed the Intel RST which seems to have introduced another issue where the pc doesn't want to shutdown and wakes itself up from a low power state as well. :< PITA haha.
Not seen it before, I'll need to get posting to see if it's related to Gigabyte and M2 slot or I've got a dud board.
Nexusfifth
16 Feb 16#32
It is very good indeed, maybe even worth posting?
But I have seen it at that prices several times in the past, for example amazon is at 123£ now.
I just found one for £114 but thats looking too good to be true dabs.com
Nexusfifth
15 Feb 16#29
This sounds more like a driver issue, have you tried updating firmware and or driver?
Nexusfifth
15 Feb 16#28
I am not following you.
According to Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2
M.2 is a standard
SATA and PCIe are interfaces and
AhCI and NVMe are controller protocols.
M. 2 is confusing enough to me as it is but in my experience pcie means fast and SATA means (comparatively slow). I understand it also depends on the mobo in question (via the number of pcie lanes) but pcie are usually faster regardless.
The angelbird you are talking about looks like something to convert a standard pcie slot in a desktop to accept M.2 ssd, we are talking about laptops here and most new ones have this built in and all you need to do is slot it in and screw it down. I have done this a couple of times now, (admittedly only once with sm951)
Glix
15 Feb 16#27
xD dragonball.
I've got this in my z170n gigabyte gaming 5 board. it's really quick but i seem to be having waking from sleep to full disk activity issues ( goes to 100% and only solved by rebooting).
Smart reports everything fine and stability tests show no issues. rather baffled but i haven't used gigabyte in so long.
fishmaster
15 Feb 16#26
SM951 is NVMe or AHCI based controller, NVMe being the preferable controller and the interface is M.2 usually mated with M.2 Gen 3. It's not PCIe as in it will fit in a PCIe interface, it's definitely M.2. If you want to interface it with PCIe then you can use a crap PCIe/M.2 interface card or something decent such as the Angelbird Wings PCIe to M.2 interface card.
ValiantSaint
15 Feb 16#25
Ah, I didn't know that they were all different sizes! Who makes the 22mm x 42mm M.2 SSDs in 120/128GB flavours? Thanks :smiley:
rev6
15 Feb 161#24
I believe a 22mm x 42mm M.2 will fit in your laptop, not sure about the others.
ValiantSaint
15 Feb 16#23
42mm? Sorry, I'm new to all this M.2 business! Many thanks :wink:
ValiantSaint
15 Feb 16#21
Great find. Would the M.2 version be ok for an HP G2 450 Probook laptop? (Many thanks)
sweet I've been after one of these for my thinkpad x220 for a while shame it isn't available in larger capacities for similarly decent pricing. I guess I could get a 512 for the 1.8 bay later...
montana78 to JustExtreme
15 Feb 16#19
Do they not take a standard 2.5" saga hdd? I had the x201 and the x230 and put 2.5" samsung 840 256gb ssd in there. I never knew they had a 1.8 bay too
Gavin01
15 Feb 16#16
i have a dell 6320 with a ssd drive it but would like to know if i could use this? as the one i have is a older 60gb ssd
Nexusfifth to Gavin01
15 Feb 16#17
I am sorry but it seems it also doesn't have an msata slot.
Also unless you are upgrading because of storage constraints it is unlikely that you would experience any notable benefit by upgrading an ssd to an ssd, it does depend how old that 60GB one is and which one it is but the only real benefit for ssd's recently has been the pcie m.2 ones and those ar eonly compatible with relatively new machines.
The ones in this post while being good value are both sata (even the m.2 one) meaning they won't be faster than 2.5" ssd's they are simply smaller so they can be put in very thin laptops or mini pc's such as NUC or Brix.
jh787
15 Feb 16#7
Yes.. I knew that I could replace the optical drive but I was kind of hoping that I could keep it, even though I rarely use it.
I think I'll keep it for a bit and sell it.
I'll buy the 2560p.
That has a normal 2.5" sata drive
Nexusfifth to jh787
15 Feb 16#15
Hmmm I fail to notice why 2.5" would be more help than 1.8".
You can probably find it cheaper as well, this is the first I found.
I thought you want to keep you hdd and add this ssd (this is how most people use it) but if you want to replace, sure you can.
kobirulali
15 Feb 16#14
D'oh! ripped out my 32gb MSSD/500gb HD combo for a full 240gb SSD (Intel driver issues meant had to leave Windows 7 for Windows 10!). Anyway already juggling speed so this would have been a good replacement!
Nexusfifth
15 Feb 16#13
I think they are going more for reliability here. In reality a business doesn't really need the fastest and shiniest ssd but I presume they would like to get a device with minimum of problems and which lasts long.
titchyyyyy
15 Feb 16#11
What speeds are we looking at for the m.2 version?
Not sure if to go for this due to the low price or pay out £65 for the SM951 which has 2000mb/s read, 600mb/s write speeds.
Nexusfifth to titchyyyyy
15 Feb 16#12
Go for sm951 any day, but be sure it is compatible with your system. This is a SATA drive while sm951 is pcie. But the performance bump is pretty massive, I would even advise to go for sm951 256GB as it gets a double write speeds.
(I guess it depends on what you would use it for) but for the main drive the sm951 is about 5 times faster than this and while this will beat any hdd, sm951 will wipe the floor with an ssd. (I have installed one in a friend's laptop and was actually pretty jealous of the speed, as my lappy doesn't support pcie M.2s)...
Agharta
15 Feb 16#10
In this case the word is arguably being abused but at least you get a 5 year warranty which is good at this price.
Enterprise equates to loads of things and not just performance anyway. Not much more to squeeze out of SATA SSDs seemingly.
dickybow
15 Feb 161#9
Although I appreciate this is Enterprise hardware, these don't seem to offer any performance advantage over SATA equivalents
Agharta
15 Feb 161#8
The 256GB M.2 version is £57.86 @ Kikatek. Much faster write speeds
jh787
15 Feb 16#3
Did anybody know if this would be suitable for a HP 2540p?
Nexusfifth to jh787
15 Feb 161#4
Quick Google seems to suggest no.
topss to jh787
15 Feb 161#6
I think the 2540p has a 1.8" drive, so no this won't fit in the original drive bay. You could replace the optical drive with a standard 2.5" SSD, but again the SSD in this deal is for a mSATA drive, which isn't the one you need. Any normal 2.5" one will though.
You would need something like this to replace the optical drive:
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
Opening post
M.2's they have 45 in stock now and at 36£ for 128GB that is one of the best budget M.2 ssd deals I have seen.
Please note that this is not a standard SSD which have been going for under 30£ for 128GB. This is an M.2 SSD used in some slim laptops/ultrabooks or as an addition to a standard hard drive.
They are usually more expensive than standard 2.5" SSD's and this is the cheapest I have seen a quality one with exception of eBay ones taken from various other machines. (and even those are very very rare).
These seem perfect for htpc builds for NUC/Brix boxes (the recent Maplin deal comes to mind) where you might occasionally want to do something more or install a couple of apps/games as well especially as it costs only about 5£ more than the cheapest 64GB I can find (which is what I have been looking for).
The M.2 version is an even better deal and now plenty in stock.
Also these are a business class versions which come with 5 years warranty.
You can use PayPal for 7p extra.
Hope it helps someone.
Latest comments (41)
be nice in a laptop or htpc system?
There are some laptops which only take these ssd rather than 2.5" ones but those laptops usually cost enough that 128GB is not an upgrade to start with. So I see these more as options to add while keeping a hdd and then moving os to it. (That is if you are lucky enough to have a port)
For htpc, things like nuc or brix almost all have msata or M.2 slots usually in addition to 2.5 inch slot, so you can have os on this ssd and data for a server on the large hard drive, making it usable as general purpose pc as well (this is my usage scenario).
Again these are just small ssd stripped down of all the plastic and having different connectors, so your laptop/htpc needs to support it.
Ti add it to a standard size desktop pc you need an adapter unless you have a built in slot (recent mobos only).
You have a typo is instead of has, but that is irrelevant.
I guess you want to say that you can't just plug in an m.2 ssd in a pcie slot (where you would put graphics and expansion cards) because they physically don't match regardless of using the same protocol, so you need an expansion card.
We were talking about laptops which as a rule only ever have pcie slots designed for m.2 (ignoring the wifi card ones) so people often say pcie slot for what should be called m.2. slot as there is no ambiguity. But yes you are right that in terms of desktops it is a different thing.
Not seen it before, I'll need to get posting to see if it's related to Gigabyte and M2 slot or I've got a dud board.
But I have seen it at that prices several times in the past, for example amazon is at 123£ now.
Fit a msata ssd to it and placed into the 1.8" slot. does the job
According to Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2
M.2 is a standard
SATA and PCIe are interfaces and
AhCI and NVMe are controller protocols.
M. 2 is confusing enough to me as it is but in my experience pcie means fast and SATA means (comparatively slow). I understand it also depends on the mobo in question (via the number of pcie lanes) but pcie are usually faster regardless.
The angelbird you are talking about looks like something to convert a standard pcie slot in a desktop to accept M.2 ssd, we are talking about laptops here and most new ones have this built in and all you need to do is slot it in and screw it down. I have done this a couple of times now, (admittedly only once with sm951)
I've got this in my z170n gigabyte gaming 5 board. it's really quick but i seem to be having waking from sleep to full disk activity issues ( goes to 100% and only solved by rebooting).
Smart reports everything fine and stability tests show no issues. rather baffled but i haven't used gigabyte in so long.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/P5S40ESABU-HP-ProBook-450-G2_1884970.html
42mm would fit.
Also unless you are upgrading because of storage constraints it is unlikely that you would experience any notable benefit by upgrading an ssd to an ssd, it does depend how old that 60GB one is and which one it is but the only real benefit for ssd's recently has been the pcie m.2 ones and those ar eonly compatible with relatively new machines.
The ones in this post while being good value are both sata (even the m.2 one) meaning they won't be faster than 2.5" ssd's they are simply smaller so they can be put in very thin laptops or mini pc's such as NUC or Brix.
I think I'll keep it for a bit and sell it.
I'll buy the 2560p.
That has a normal 2.5" sata drive
Ahh I see what you are asking. Yes you can find a converter for msata to 1.8" hdd. For example:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mini-PCIe-mSATA-MicroSATA-adapter/dp/B00AEQ92FO
You can probably find it cheaper as well, this is the first I found.
I thought you want to keep you hdd and add this ssd (this is how most people use it) but if you want to replace, sure you can.
Not sure if to go for this due to the low price or pay out £65 for the SM951 which has 2000mb/s read, 600mb/s write speeds.
(I guess it depends on what you would use it for) but for the main drive the sm951 is about 5 times faster than this and while this will beat any hdd, sm951 will wipe the floor with an ssd. (I have installed one in a friend's laptop and was actually pretty jealous of the speed, as my lappy doesn't support pcie M.2s)...
Enterprise equates to loads of things and not just performance anyway. Not much more to squeeze out of SATA SSDs seemingly.
You would need something like this to replace the optical drive:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-Replacement-Universal-9-5mm-Drive/dp/B00CE4KMN0/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455552371&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Generic+Sata+2nd+Hard+Drive+Hdd+Caddy+Hp+Elitebook+2530p+2540p+2740p
I checked with them and it is the msata version, (also note that m.2 version has the same picture)...
Edit: Added a picture with all three versions now.