M.2 is one of the many form factors available for SSDs. These look a lot different than conventional SATA SSDs and are designed to provide a significant increase in system performance. If you are willing to buy an M.2 SSD for your rig, you need an M.2 slot on your motherboard; As these M.2 SSDs use a specially designed M.2 slot, which is exposed to a PCIe lane. However, even if you don’t have an M.2 slot, you are not required to buy a new motherboard to upgrade to a new M.2 SSD. As an alternative solution, you can go with the best PCIe m.2 x4 Bracket as a workaround.
The solution is to use a PCIe adapter/card/bracket. These brackets allow mounting an M.2 SSD to any of your free PCIe slots. As we described above, an actual M.2 slot uses PCIe lanes so these expansion cards will provide you with the same performance as the original M.2 slot. The mounted SSD will deliver same raw performance on these adapters as it would on a dedicated M.2 slot on a motherboard.
Best PCIe m.2 x4 Bracket
Today, we are discussing some of the best of these PCIe M.2 beckets available out there in the market. There are not many specs to talk about so we will be having a quick overview of the features they offer. Without any more discussion, here we begin:
1. Silver-Stone ECM22 M.2 PCIe Adapter:
Features:
- Consist of exposed gold inlays, which help to deliver consistent performance by cooling down installed M.2 SSDs
- Supports all M.2 SSD form factors up to 110 mm length
- Supports both types of M.2 ports by converting M Key port into PCIe x4 and B key port into SATA interface
- Can be used to mount two SSDs, one using PCIe x4 interface and the other using PCIe x4 interface
- The low profile expansion slot is available for use with smaller form factor PCs
- Plug and play support, no driver installation required (a reboot might be necessary)
2. StarTech PEX4M2E1 M.2 Adapter:
Features:
- Speed up the system by adding faster M.2 SSDs
- Wide PCIe M.2 SSD support consisting of 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110 drives, supports both NVMe and AHCI
- Supports most of the PCIe 3.0 motherboards. Moreover, it is backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 1.0
- Thanks to the independent OS support, the installation is pretty fast and easy on native OS itself
- It can be installed on either x4, x8 or x16 PCIe Slot
- As it is shipped with both full size and low profile bracket, you can use it on all kind of PC form factors.
3. Ableconn Host Adapter Card:
Features:
- Being a PCIe 3.0 x4 lane host adapter, it is compatible with all PCIe 3.0 motherboards and backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 motherboards as well.
- It supports the variety of SSDs including PCIe gen-2 / gen3 M.2 NGFF 80mm, 60mm, and 42mm SSDs, thanks to the movable M.2 NGFF stand-off.
- It is compatible with most of M-key M.2 PCIe SSDs such as Samsung Pro Series, Plextor M6e series, Kingston HyperX SSD, etc. Dual-sided SSD modules are supported as well. Unfortunately, it does not support B key SSDs.
- It is a RoHS standard compatible product, manufactured in Taiwan.
- It takes power directly from the motherboard and does not require additional 3.3 V connector.
4. QNINE Dual M.2 PCIe Adapter:
Features:
- This card has one NGFF B key and one NGFF M key sockets, allowing you to mount two SSDs at the same time. However, you cannot use two B key SSDs or two M key SSDs together
- Thanks to the eight screw holes it supports a variety of NGFF SSD form factors such as 2230, 224, 2260, 2280 and 22110.
- It does not require installing any additional software or drivers. One reboot is enough to get the thing rolling.
- Moreover, it receives power directly from the PCIe lane, so no dedicated power connector is required.
- Boot function is supported. Furthermore, it can be used with any OS including Mac, Linux, Windows or even WinCE.
5. Mailiya M.2 PCIe Adapter:
Features:
- Mailiya M.2 PCIe Adapter works with all PCIe 1.0, PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 motherboards
- It supports M.2 NGFF 80 / 60 / 30 / 42 mm SSDs from both PCIe Gen3 and Gen2. Moreover, thanks to the movable stand-off and multiple plated holes; this card supports 2280, 2260, 2230 and 2242 SSDs
- Dual-sided modules are supported as well up to 1.5 mm height on both top and bottom
- It has red/green LEDs indicating power and data transfer status. However, we are not sure how useful it will be since it is an internal component
- It ships with both low profile and regular size bracket. Variety of operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux are supported.
- Receives power from PCIe bus Slot 3.3v
6. SIGG SC-M20014-S1 PCIe Adapter:
Features:
- Supports all M key PCIe SSDs
- Also, it supports multiple M.2 SSD form factors including 2230, 2242, 2260 and 2280 on system released after 2015. Prior systems do not support M.2 SSDs.
- It supports PCIe 3.0 motherboards and is backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 and 1.0 boards as well.
- It is initially used for PCIe x4 bus slot. However, you can also use it for x8 / x16 bus slot.
- It does not require any additional software or driver installation. It ships with both regular size and low profile bracket allowing you to use it with different cases.
- There are LED lights indicating the power status and if there is any data transfer ongoing or not.
7. Rivo PCIe Riser / Adapter Card:
Features:
- Both NVMe and AHCI M.2 SSDs are supported on this card with various form factors including 2230, 2242, 2260 and 2280. Moreover, different drive sizes including 80 / 60 / 30 / 42 mm are supported
- It is compatible with latest PCIe 3.0 motherboards and also backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 1.0 motherboards
- Unfortunately, it does not support B-key M.2 SSDs; however, It is 39 GB/s PCI Express 3.0 Compliant
- No driver installation is required. It is compatible with a variety of operating systems including Windows 8/10, Windows Server 2012 R2, Linux Series, Fedora, SUSE, Ubuntu and also has Red hat native driver support
- Can be used with any empty PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 2.0 x4, x8 or x16 slot on your board
8. EZ DIY-FAB Express M.2 SSD Card
Features:
- It supports M.2 NGFF SSDS with different sizes including 110mm, 80mm, 60mm, and 42 mm from both PCIe Gen3 and Gen2
- Thanks to the movable standoff and multiple holes it supports a variety of SSD types including 22110, 2280, 2260 and 2242 as well
- The compatibility is even enhanced as it is backward compatible with PCIe 1.0 and PCIe 2.0 motherboards, along with the latest PCIe 3.0 motherboards
- It has LED indicators showing power and data transfer status. Moreover, it supports 39 Gbps PCIe 3.0 compliant
- It ships with both regular size and low profile brackets, allowing you to use with a variety of cases types
- No additional software or driver installation is required. Moreover, it supports a variety of operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux
- It receives power directly from PCIe bus slot, no extra power slot required
Conclusion:
We hope this post helps you to pick the right PCI-E m.2 bracket x4 for yourself so that you can use your modern M.2 SSD on your motherboard with PCIe slot. If there is any doubt or question you want to clear, or any suggestion, feel free to contact us directly or use the comment section below. Thank You!