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SilverStone ECM20 m.2 Adapter Review
By David Ramsey
Manufacturer: SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: ECM20
Model Number: SST-ECM20
UPC: 844761012137 EAN: 4710007222133
Price As Tested: $17.99 (Amazon)
Full Disclosure: SilverStone provided the product sample used in this article.
The m.2 form factor is becoming popular for SSDs due to its small size, and, in PCI-E guise, superior performance. As our recent test of the Samsung 950 Pro m.2 SSD has shown, PCI-E m.2 SSDs offer performance many times that of the very best SATA SSDs, so if you’re looking for a storage upgrade, m.2 is definitely the way to go. While m.2 slots are only available on the latest motherboards, SilverStone Technology’s ECM20 m.2 adapter card offers an inexpensive way for older systems to enjoy the performance and space savings of modern m.2 SSDs. Benchmark Reviews tests the ECM20 and compares the performance of a modern m.2 PCI-E SSD on this adapter card with its performance on a native m.2 port.
Features & Specifications
- Supports one SATA6 SSD and one PCI-E 4x SSD
- No drivers required
- Includes extra bracket for low-profile systems
- Supports Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems
Let’s take a look at this adapter in the next section.
9 comments
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Athlonite
20 November 2015 at 2:52 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You don’t seem to mention if this card is able to be used for booting windows from
David Ramsey
20 November 2015 at 3:55 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yes, you can boot from m.2 SSDs in either port.
verynius
25 March 2016 at 11:23 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hello!
I know, that this is a rather old(ish) article, but i thougt you might answer my questions anyway 🙂
So i just got a Samsung 950 Pro, and since since my onboard M.2 port isn’t fast enough (ASUS Maximus VII Ranger), so i ordered a Silverstone ECM20. Im currently using the SSD on the MOBO’s M.2, since the adapter isn’t arriving until next month. My question is, that is there any kind of setting that i have to adjust in the bios, once i install the SSD on the adapter? The PCIEx8_4 is set to M.2, but other than this? Honestly, i was searching the web before asking a stupid question, but the M.2 to PCIE cards are not well known, and i couldn’t find a thing, sadly.
And for my second question: after putting the ECM20 into the build, do i need to reinstall my windows 10, or it will boot without a question?
Thanks for the help in advance,
Verdynius
David Ramsey
25 March 2016 at 12:12 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
As a Z97 chipset-based board, your Maximus VII Ranger has 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes available from the processor, and 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes from the chipset. You want four of the 3.0 lanes for the best performance from the Samsung 950. The only way to use those lanes is to plug the ECM20 adapter card into one of the red video card slot– hopefully you’re not using two graphics cards.
Normally, if you’re just using one graphics card, all 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes would be allocated to that card. I’m not sure how the Maximus VII will handle one video card in one x16 slot and the adapter card in the other x16 slot. Hopefully it will just see two devices and allocate lanes to the adapter card. As far as I know the only possibilities are that it will either ignore the adapter card (in which case it won’t work at all), or it will allocate 8 lanes to it (wasteful, since it only needs four, but there you go).
If you can’t use the secondary graphics card slot, obviously the x4 slot is your only option. While you won’t get the full performance of the 950, it will still be faster than any SATA SSD.
You shouldn’t have to do anything to the drive once it’s moved to the card, except perhaps re-set the preferred boot device in your motherboard’s BIOS.
verdynius
31 March 2016 at 6:42 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you for the help, it’s really appreciated! The adapter just arrived an hour ago, installed the SSD onto it, inserted into the free red socket. Booted it up, checked the bios to be sure, but the correct Windows Boot Manager was selected already, and it booted like a charm.
Read/write speeds are very similiar to the ones in your article, just a bit lower (~10%) everywhere. But thats maybe because the OS im currently running is on that device.
Thanks again, keep up the great work!
Svaca
22 April 2016 at 5:43 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi, i have MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming (ful Z77 chipset)…Can I use this card with NVMe Sam SM951 and boot to OS? On everything PC with PCIex? How i set-up in bios? Thanks for answer.
David Ramsey
23 April 2016 at 7:35 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Probably. If you have a graphics card in your PCI-E x16 slot (which I assume you do), you’ll be using PCI-E 2.0 lanes from the chipset to drive the SSD, so you won’t be able to get its full performance. But it should still be faster than a SATA SSD.
Caring1
4 May 2016 at 7:40 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I believe NVMe only works on the Z97 and newer chip sets.
David Ramsey
4 May 2016 at 9:38 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Good point. It’s theoretically possible to enable NVME boot support on earlier chipsets with a BIOS upgrade, but as far as I know, nobody’s done it yet.