Which M2 for Asus H97M-E please

[m00dy]

Hi

I want to upgrade my primary drive in this older pc to an M2 but am unsure of compatibility.
Currently have SSD's in the SATA ports but there is an M2 slot on the motherboard that is unused and I want to try and install my primary OS onto an M2 there. Dual boot with windows and linux.
I intend to use the existing SSD's as slave drives via the SATA connections they currently use.
From the manual under internal connections it states "1 x M.2 socket 3 (for M Key, type 2260/2280 devices)"
Do i need to use a particular generation or are they all backwards compatible? Any other problems I need to be aware of?

Here is the manual https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1150/H97M-E/E9092_H97M-E.pdf?model=H97M-E

This is what I am looking at or similar https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...m.2-solid-state-drive-zp1000gm-hd-3dv-se.html

Appreciate any advice

 

[Snapshot]

Gen3 or Gen4 will be fine. Gen5 might be but you'd have to be especially daft to consider it.
You could consider the Firecuda 520 rather than the 530 and perhaps go for 2TB rather than 1TB.

 

[Tetras]

From the manual under internal connections it states "1 x M.2 socket 3 (for M Key, type 2260/2280 devices)"

If I use Crucial's configurator, it seems to think you can use their PCI-E 3/4 drives. I don't know what gen the slot is.

The datasheet for the Firecuda 530 says it is backwards compatible with gen 3.

My recommendation for a drive for older systems is the WD SN570, which says it is backwards compatible with gen 2 and can operate with 4, 2 or 1 lane.