M.2
form factor for solid-state drives and miniature expansion cards
M.2 (pronounced "em-dot-two"), formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), is a specification for internally mounted computer expansion cards and connectors. It was developed to replace the older Mini SATA (mSATA) and Mini PCIe (mPCIe) standards.
M.2 supports a variety of module sizes and interface types, offering greater flexibility for modern devices. It is widely used in compact systems such as ultrabooks and tablet computers, particularly for solid-state drives (SSDs), due to its smaller size and higher performance compared to mSATA.
The M.2 connector can provide multiple interface options, including up to four lanes of PCI Express, as well as Serial ATA 3.0 and USB 3.0. The supported interfaces vary depending on the device and host implementation. M.2 modules and slots use different "keying" notches to indicate supported interfaces and to prevent incompatible installations.
For storage devices, M.2 supports both the older Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) and the newer NVM Express (NVMe) protocols. AHCI provides compatibility with legacy SATA-based systems and operating systems, while NVMe is designed for high-speed SSDs and allows for much faster performance by supporting multiple simultaneous I/O operations.
Features
M.2 modules can integrate multiple functions, including the following device classes: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, satellite navigation, near-field communication (NFC), digital radio, WiGig, wireless WAN (WWAN), and solid-state drives (SSDs). The SATA revision 3.2 specification, in its gold revision as of August 2013, standardizes M.2 as a new format for storage devices and specifies its hardware layout.
“M.2” enters the record as form factor for solid-state drives and miniature expansion cards. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what form, factor and solid-state can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15528609. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “M.2” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.