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This is a little tidbit question I posted on a comment on the below mentioned question.

"Of course also means it can be used in a (true) dual-personality M.2 slot. It won't work with PCIe, though."

"Just the way there are dual personality M.2 slots are there dual/ triple (SAS??) personality SSDs?"

I got a bunch of negatives on this question of mine but there's still no easy way to find, identify & determine PCIe / NVMe/ SATA properties of an SSD especially those with B + M dual connectors:

Understand how this M.2 B+M Key SSD can work via PCIe Adapter Card with 2 slots (both 1 B and 1 M slot)?

Read these and a few more articles as well at the time:

PS: Similar question but no answer posted. We need a SU Wiki for this subject area.

NVMe support - implicit or explicit?

Also mentioned on a comment here by Ramhound:

"M.2 x4 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)" indicates to me both AHCI support and NVMe support but that is just me. Now If you want to boot to the device, that ius entirely up to the OS, after POST. "

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There are no dual-personality SSDs. Source: Current offerings.
That's a given, of course, because it would be very complex to build a controller that connects to all necessary pins on the M.2 connector. The controller would also have to support running in both a SATA and PCIe mode. And last but not least, the controller would have to detect which connection to make. AFAIK, sensing is not a part of the M.2 connector, however.

So, while technically possible (probably), it won't ever be economical.

SAS is also entirely unrelated because it is not used in consumer-grade PCs. There would be no benefit in providing SATA/PCIe connectivity for SAS devices.

It's also NVMe vs AHCI and SATA vs PCIe. The only way to find out what protocol and connection the SSD uses is to look at the specifications.

A PCIe SSD could use whatever proprietary protocol the manufacturer decides on.

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  • Question updated with @Ramhound comment here - superuser.com/questions/1028996/… - Seems to say there are some? I'm not clear on it.
    – Alex S
    Oct 2, 2016 at 10:50
  • Just saw you posted an answer there - Will read it up
    – Alex S
    Oct 2, 2016 at 10:51
  • Ramhound’s comment is about the slot, not the storage device that would be installed in the slot.
    – Daniel B
    Oct 2, 2016 at 11:00

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