Have you ever felt overwhelmed when trying to understand all the terminology used to describe solid state drives (SSDs)? Terms like SATA, PCIe, NVMe, and M.2 can certainly be confusing!
As a data analyst who has tested countless SSDs over the years, allow me to clearly explain the key specs and performance capabilities of different SSD categories on the market right now. Consider this your personal guide to picking the ideal SSD type for your needs and budget.
A Brief History First – How Did We Get Here?
To appreciate just how far SSD speeds and affordability have progressed, it helps to first understand a bit of historical context…
SSD technology itself has been around since the 1950s in various enterprise-grade formats. But it wasn‘t until 1991 that SSDs built using NAND flash memory emerged via a pioneering Toshiba design. Early commercial SSDs were very niche and prohibitively expensive however – costing thousands for multi-megabyte capacity!
Over a decade passed before SSDs utilizing less costly single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash became viable for mainstream laptop use, followed by lower-performing but cheaper multi-level cell (MLC) NAND. Controller tech and density improvements eventually enabled SSDs to rival HDD capacities at ever lower price points.
The first SATA SSDs for consumers emerged around 2007 from OEMs like Intel and gradually replaced 2.5” hard disk drives thanks to massive improvements in boot/load times, reliability and ruggedness. But performance was still constrained by the SATA 3 interface topping out at around 550 MB/s.
Enter the game-changing M.2 "gum stick" form factor in 2013 – its tiny physical footprint and direct PCI Express bus connectivity unleashed vastly quicker NVMe protocol SSDs reaching 35x hard drive speeds. Later PCIe 4.0 and cutting-edge 3D NAND unlocked 7 GB/s bandwidth that saturates what even today’s CPUs can fully utilize!
| SSD Standard | Max Interface Bandwidth | Year Introduced |
|---|---|---|
| SATA 3 | 6 Gbit/s | 2009 |
| PCIe 3.0 x4 | ~4 GB/s | 2010 |
| PCIe 4.0 x4 | ~8 GB/s | 2017 |
Now let‘s contrast the practical real-world performance and ideal use cases across modern SSD options in 2023…
SATA SSDs – Reliable Workhorses Offering Decent Speed
If you purchased or built a PC any time after 2010, chances are high it relies on the ubiquitous Serial ATA (SATA) interface for both hard disk and solid state storage. This widely supported standard caps performance around a theoretical limit of 750 MB/s.
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What About Cost per GB?
When viewed through the lens of cost efficiency in terms of price paid per usable GB, NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs have plummeted over 50% year-over-year while vastly outpacing HDDs and older SATA drives as this table illustrates:
| SSD Type | Avg $/GB Q1 2022 | Avg $/GB Q1 2023 | % Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| HDD (4TB) | $0.017 | $0.015 | 12% |
| SATA (1TB) | $0.08 | $0.07 | 13% |
| NVMe PCIe 3.0 (1TB) | $0.12 | $0.09 | 25% |
| NVMe PCIe 4.0 (2TB) | $0.17 | $0.08 | 53% |
The stellar cost per gigabyte advantage of leading-edge drives makes building a new editing or gaming rig using PCIe 4.0 NVMe technology extremely compelling – you can achieve blazing speed and save money long term.
