Fastest SSD for ThinkPad T470p

Question

I have a ThinkPad T470p and the SSD I currently have doesn't seem to perform as well as I'd like.  I looked inside there is a M.2 slot (currently empty) which seems too short for most M.2 SSDs.  There is also a SATA slot that currently has an adapter to PCIe NVMe (I think) which is where my current SSD lives.  So it seems my options are:

A short M.2 SSD (maybe 60mm?)
Current adapter-based setup with a faster NVMe SSD
SATA SSD

It is hard for me to believe that going through an adapter could be faster than plain SATA but I don't really understand these new interface standards.

What is my best option for performance?

Laszlo Valko · Answer

According to the ThinkPad T470p Platform Specifications document, there are two M.2 slots:

an "M.2 SSD / PCIe NVMe, PCIe 3.0 x 2, 16Gb/s" slot with the comment "System has one HDD slot or one M.2 2280 slot exclusively for storage",
and another "128GB M.2 SSD / SATA 6.0Gb/s, in WWAN slot as 2nd Storage, mutually exclusive with WWAN" slot.

So, there is a full M.2 2280 slot (which cannot be used at the same time as the 2.5" SSD/HDD slot, because they occupy the same physical space), which provides a 16Gb/s PCIe 3.0 x2 connection (way faster than a SATA3 with 6Gb/s), and a shorter WWAN M.2 slot, which can be used with smaller (2260) cards, and which provides only SATA connectivity (limited to the standard 6Gb/s speed).

Fastest SSD for ThinkPad T470p

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