So as you might have guessed i’m in the market for an SSD to speed up the Lemon (Lenovo Thinkpad x240, my current laptop project).

Rather than replacing the 500gb HDD i’ve decided to use the unused M.2 slot which was originally intended to house the WWAN card as the home for an M.2 SSD drive.

For those who don’t know M.2 is a new micro intefrace for perhipherals. Theres a few different types however for my purposes the Lemon comes with several M.2 Sata connectors inside giving me an option to have a superfast boot disk containing all my programs and slower but higher capacity storage in the existing 500gb HDD.

I was hoping to find a great deal on this weeks Amazon Prime day but alas it was not to be (got a great deal on some replacement Sennheiser HD 201 headphones tho).

When searching for an M.2 SSD for the Lemon i had to navigate a lot of jargon to find exactly what i need:

Size: theres a few different sizes of M.2 SSD ranging from 42mm (reference 2242 – what i need) upwards

theres a few different sizes of M.2 SSD ranging from 42mm (reference 2242 – what i need) upwards Interface: Theres a few different interfaces the main ones being SATA and NVME – i need the former

Theres a few different interfaces the main ones being SATA and NVME – i need the former Speed: Theres a lot of missinformation on the speed of various M.2 SSD’s and much of whats specified on Amazon doesnt match the manufacturers website.

If you’re in the market for a 42mm (2242) SATA M.2 SSD i’ve compiled the following chart giving you a quick comparrison of the available options for you. This is based on items found in Amazon, ebay and Ali Express for convenience with one exception

* Stats from manufacturers website differ from those shown on Amazon

title KingDian M.2 NGFF 22*42mm 240GB M.2 2242 Solid State Drive Disk for Desktop PCs and MacPro (22*42mm 240GB) (N400 64GB) TCSUNBOW M.2 2242 240GB SSD NGFF 240GB 256GB Solid State Drive Disk for Ultrabook Desktop PCs and Mac Pro (22*42mm ) (N4 Transcend 256 GB M.2 SATA III SSD Type 2240 MLC Team TM4PS5256GMC101 M.2 SSD 256GB Lite Type 2242 256GB ZTC Armor 42mm M.2 NGFF 6G SSD Solid State Disk- ZTC-SM201-256G MyDigitalSSD Super Boot 2 (SB2) 42mm M.2 2242 NGFF SATA III (6G) SSD Solid State Drive (256GB 2242) Ridata M.2 2242 256GB SSD NGFF 256GB 240GB Fast Speed Solid State Drive Disk for Ultrabook Desktop PCs and Mac Pro TrekStor 66737 M2 with 256GB SSD Module Drive Dogfish SSD M.2 2242 240GB Internal Solid State Drive Laptop Hard Drive M2 (240GB) M.2 240gb 256gb NGFF SSD HDD M.2 SATA 6gb/s Solid State Hardddisk Drive 2242 22x42mm For Ultrabook Laptop Notebook OSCOO ON800 M.2 2242 NGFF 240GB 240G Solid State Drive SSD Disk Zero Noise Slim url https://www.amazon.co.uk/KingDian-240GB-Solid-Desktop-MacPro/dp/B078HFXRKN/ref=sr_1_21?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943284&sr=1-21&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/TCSUNBOW-240GB-256GB-Ultrabook-Desktop/dp/B078H74B4P/ref=sr_1_9?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943284&sr=1-9&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-256-SATA-Type-2240/dp/B00KLTPUG4/ref=sr_1_17?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943284&sr=1-17&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/Team-TM4PS5256GMC101-M-2-SSD-256GB-Lite-Type/dp/B073193KCK/ref=sr_1_23?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943284&sr=1-23&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/256GB-ZTC-Armor-Solid-ZTC-SM201-256G/dp/B00YDHKIMG/ref=sr_1_43?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943565&sr=1-43&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/MyDigitalSSD-Super-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B01MXMQQ7Z/ref=sr_1_55?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943622&sr=1-55&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ridata-256GB-240GB-Ultrabook-Desktop/dp/B07DFQJDXS/ref=sr_1_143?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1531943697&sr=1-143&keywords=2242+m.2+ssd https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0764JMKRW https://www.amazon.com/Dogfish-M-2-2242-Ngff-Internal/dp/B07F2X7PYH/ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/NT-256-240GB-256GB-NGFF-SSD-HDD-M-2-SATA-6Gb-s-MLC-Solid-State-Disk/32817754508.html https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OSCOO-ON800-M-2-2242-NGFF-240GB-240G-Solid-State-Drive-SSD-Disk-Zero-Noise-Slim/113142762670?epid=26021322739&hash=item1a57d58cae%3Ag%3Az3EAAOSwPRxbRGun&_sop=15&_sacat=175669&_nkw=mydigitsal+m.2+ssd+2242&_from=R40&LH_BIN=1&rt=nc capacity 240gb 240gb 256gb 256gb 256gb 256gb 240gb 256GB 240gb 256gb 240gb price (prime) 48.99 50.99 105.79 103.09 75.94 109.95 79.99 110.62 $56.99 40.52 41.85 read 520mb/s* 549mb/s 500mb/s* 520mb/s* 550mb/s 560mb/s 536mb/s 560mb/s 540mb/s 520mb/s 520mb/s write 135mb/s* 257mb/s 450mb/s* 150mb/s* 480mb/s* 483mb/s* 479.4mb/s 300mb/s 500mb/s 300mb/s 500mb/s Model N400 240GB N4 240GB TS256GMTS400 TM4PS5256GMC101 ZTC-SM201-256G MDM242-SB2-0256 9FGB560RDAC01 DOGFSIH M.2 2242 SSD NT-256-22*42 ON800 M.2 2242 Cache 128mb Flash Type TLC MLC TLC Channel 4 4kb IOPS Read 71086* 70000* 35000* 42mb/s 96000 4kb IOPS Write 54909* 70000* 40000* 130mb/s 40000 Warranty 3yr 3 yr 3yr 3 yr 3 yr 3 Years Access Time 0.15ms 0.1ms 0.05ms Controller ts6500 phison s9* phison s11 MK8115/SM2246XT SMI write to life 8yr (100gb per day)

Looking at the specs the My Digital M.2 SSD looks like a winner being moddle of the road in price but well above the others in specification. Checking their website mydigitaldiscount.com the USD price is well below that shown in Amazon, even adding international delivery you’d still save around £20 ($85 + $30 delivery risking £0 import tax) plus they accept Paypal and Amazon payments.

So thats my recommendation. If you have any other M.2 SSD’s you’d like me to compare just tweet me @techtrope.

Disclaimer – This is not a sponsored or affiliate based post it is purely for your information and education.