thanks. I had come to that conclusion as well, thanks for substantiating my guesswork. I knew nothing of nvme or , m key types...now I know.
take care
Hi fred,I'm glad I could help, but we didn't actually discuss NVMe. All I was talking about was M.2 SSD slots and the keys. M.2 can support two interface types for SSDs: SATA and PCIe. The keys have no meaning for SATA---some M.2 SATA SSDs have M keys and some have B keys. Because the M.2 keys don't matter for SATA---except your M.2 SATA SSD needs the correct one to plug into the slot---most manufacturers provide both so they're "universal" and will work with M.2 slots that require either key. That's why you'll see many M.2 SATA SSDs with both notches (called B+M keys). It's only the PCIe interface that places a meaning on the M.2 key.
According to MSI's specs for your
GS65, it has one M.2 PCIe SSD slot and one M.2 combo SSD slot. The first one supports only an M.2 PCIe SSD. The second one supports both SATA and PCIe, making it possible to use either type of M.2 SSD with the slot.
Now we come to NVMe. It is not an interface. The only interfaces supported by M.2 for SSDs are SATA and PCIe. So what is NVMe? It's a communication protocol that speeds communication over PCIe interfaces. It is purely optional. Many users and even some marketers speak or write about NVMe as if it is the interface. It is not. PCIe is the interface that it runs on and all NVMe does is accelerate the communication over it. An NVMe driver comes standard with Windows 8.x and 10. An NVMe driver can be added to Windows 7.
Kind regards, David