PCIe SSDs slowly replacing SATA3 SSD
You know it, in my reviews I have been complaining for a year or so now that the developments for the SATA interface are not progressing. Most SATA3 SSDs these days are limited by the more narrow bandwidth the interface offers. As a result, we've seen SSD NAND storage in the form of M.2. on the rise for a year or two already.
M.2. is making use of the PCIe interface, often using a 2x or 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes ensuring you can even reach the 1 to 3 GB/sec marker compared to the ~560 MB/sec marker SATA3 offers. Sales are now reflecting this dynamic, there is a sharp move towards PCIe based NAND storage. There's another factor involved, NAND is getting cheaper, making fast NVMe PCIe based storage more affordable. PCIe SSDs are expected to become the new mainstream by the end of 2019 with a market share of 50%. Apacer Technology president CK Chang said that with better performance, consumer PCIe SSDs will gradually replace SATA SSDs.
Market sources said that unit price for 512GB PCIe SSD has fallen by11% sequentially to US$55 in the first quarter of 2019, compared to a corresponding price drop of 9% for SATA SSD, with price gap between the two types of SSD continuing to narrow from 30% seen in 2018. The sources continued that current average unit price for 512GB SSDs has declined to the same level for 256 GB SSDs registered one year earlier, and larger price falls for SSDs ranging in capacity from 512GB to 1TB are expected in the remainder of 2019.
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Senior Member
Posts: 3352
Joined: 2014-10-20
They just need to drop in price.
Rather have a few cables than pay 50 bucks extra for speeds youre not going to notice in normal day use.
This. For an average user, Nvme adds nothing of value + it costs more.
You will never see a similar performance gain as when you upgrade from HDD to SSD.
Senior Member
Posts: 10322
Joined: 2013-01-17
They just need to drop in price.
Rather have a few cables than pay 50 bucks extra for speeds youre not going to notice in normal day use.
This. For an average user, M.2 adds nothing of value + it costs more.
You will never see a similar performance gain as when you upgrade from HDD to SSD.
Don`t ruin implants in consumers` heads - true enthusiast should use only newest hardware.
Senior Member
Posts: 2218
Joined: 2013-03-10
Considering how old sata 3 is already, it's weird there's no sata 4. I guess nobody is developing one? Most people haven't got too many M.2 slots. PCIe addon cards with an M.2 slot or two of them must be numerous, though I never look at them.
Senior Member
Posts: 1302
Joined: 2003-09-14
The problem is that the add-on cards require PCIe bifurcation.
Not all intel boards support that, and some AMD boards do.
I'd like to see the M2 connector go vertical, rather than laying flat on the motherboard. It takes up so much space!!!
They should be inserted like Dimms really, space wise.
Sata is basically dead I think for now. They tried to double up the bandwidth with SATA-Express, which was just terrible in terms of connector size, and space taken on the mobo also.
U2 isn't much better.
We probably need a 4-in-1 cable that has one connector on the Mobo, and breaks out to four M2 connectors, or more.
We could also do with seeing some more M2 backplanes for PC's, stuff that either fits in the 3.5in bays, or 5.25in bays, or both.
Senior Member
Posts: 6975
Joined: 2010-08-28
They just need to drop in price.
Rather have a few cables than pay 50 bucks extra for speeds youre not going to notice in normal day use.