So is it ngff or pcie 3x4 i thought it was one or the other?

The acronym NGFF refers to "Next Generation Form Factor", and really refers to the fact that it is in a M.2 form factor. It does not tell you what the electrical interface is. In this case it is a PCIe Gen 3 x4. But looking at the device specs, specifically the read bandwidth, the PCIe x4 is not buying you any performance advantage over a 6Gbs SATA interface. It also makes it a pain to use it as a Boot device, as you have to load special NVME drivers during the Windows install. Bottom line it is a PCIe Gen3 x4 device, the 2280 number refers to its length, it is 80mm long, verify that you have support for a M.2 device that long. If you want performance look for something with a greater than 1000MB/s read capability, because of individual NAND flash interface speeds, this usually means a device with lots of NAND Flash devices i.e. a higher capacity M.2 PCIe x4 device. The down side of higher speed is that it consumes more power and gets hotter under sustained writes. To Much Info? :--)

I'm confused on the design of this card. Most M.2 i've seen online shows two gaps on the connector end, but this one has one. What's the difference?

The M.2 with the double gaps as you call them is a SATA III and the single is a PCIe interface card. The difference is in the connector/interface you are trying to plug it into on your system. They are differ t and you can google it to see what they are. They are not interchangeable.

My laptop can take m.2 2280 ssd, will this work on my mobo?

Yes, I just replaced an m.2 2280 ssd with this

can i install this as boot drive with win 7 sp1 64 bit. I have install hotfix 2990941 which is supposedly drivers.

The method I used was to load the Samsung drivers during install using F6. This was with Win7 64 Professional though. From what I read this should work if you met some of the prerequisites.

Hard Drive	128 GB Solid State Drive
Brand	SAMSUNG
Series	PM951u00a0
Item model number	MZVLV128HCGR-00000
Hardware Platform	PC, laptop, Mac
Item Weight	3.52 ounces
Product Dimensions	0.86 x 3.15 x 0.14 inches
Item Dimensions LxWxH	0.86 x 3.15 x 0.14 inches
Color	Black
Flash Memory Size	128 GB
Hard Drive Interface	NVMe
Manufacturer	Samsung
ASIN	B01DK4BUUQ
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer	No
Date First Available	October 28, 2015

Samsung 175660 Ssd Mzvlv128hcgr-00000 Pm951 128gb M.2 Pcie3.0 Bare

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