When looking for SSDs, you can easily find that the prices vary a lot; two popular types of SSDs are PCIe SSD and SATA SSD. But which is better for you? If you don’t know, please read the content below which focuses on PCIe SSD vs SATA. Please resort to MiniTool Software to protect your SSD data or solve problems with it.
PCIe SSD vs. SATA: Which Is Better
When planning to buy a new SSD (Solid-State Drive), you must take a lot of factors into consideration:
- Price
- Capacity
- Compatibility
- Speed
- Security
- …
Here, I’ll mainly focus on introducing & comparing two different types of SSDs: PCIe SSD vs SATA. After reading the corresponding introduction, you’ll understand which one is better for you: PCIe or SATA.
What Is PCIe SSD
PCI Express SSD, officially abbreviated as PCIe SSD or PCI-e SSD, is a kind of serial computer expansion bus standard with high speed; it is designed to replace the older bus standards including PCI, PCI-X and AGP. PCIe is an interface used on graphics cards, hard drives, SSDs, Wi-Fi and Ethernet hardware.
Graphics cards and network cards are introduced in PCIe SSDs to achieve low latency.
What Is SATA SSD
SATA refers to Serial ATA, which is a computer bus interface used on devices like hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives; it is released to replace the earlier Parallel ATA for better performance.
PCIe vs SATA
Please read the following content carefully to get a better understanding of PCIe SSD and SATA SSD. After reading, you may know which one is more suitable for you: PCIe or SATA.
PCIe SSD Market Share Will Be Equal To SATA Drive Market Share.
Advantages of PCIe
A PCIe SSD has the following advantages when compared to SATA SSD.
1. The transfer speed of PCIe is faster.
The transfer speed of PCIe 3.0 is as effective as 985 MB/s per lane; and the potential transfer speeds of all PCIe SSDs are up to 15.76 GB/s, all thanks to the fact that 1x, 4x, 8x, or 16x lanes are fully supported by PCIe devices.
In theory, a PCIe 3.0 provided with 16x lanes is 25-times faster than a SATA 3.0. Yet, you can hardly see a consumer-grade PCIe SSD that owns so many lanes. Actually, the 2x and 4x lanes are common; thus, you may realize a maximum transfer speed of about 3.94 GB/s.
2. PCIe SSDs have better relative performance.
Currently, the most popular form of SSD is SATA 3.0. In theory, its transfer speed is 6 Gb/s (750 MB/s). But in reality, its transfer speed is only 4.8 Gb/s (600MB/s); this is caused by the occurrence of physical overhead during data encoding for transfer. Though 4.8 GB/s is fast enough for home users, it loses the race when you compare it with the PCIe SSDs. All thanks to this, the relative performance of PCIe is better than that of SATA.
Advantages of SATA
A SATA SSD has the following advantages when compared to PCIe SSD.
1. The battery life of SATA is longer.
If you just browse the web or do other RAM-heavy activities, you’ll find no difference in the battery life of a PCIe SSD and a SATA SSD. Yet, if you want to transfer a large amount of data (which means your SSD needs to work constantly), the battery consumption of a SATA SSD will be less.
2. SATA SSDs have better hardware compatibility.
Since SATA appears early, it has a lot of time to make itself one of the most widely-used connection types. That is to say, if you have a SATA SSD, you can let it work on almost all common desktops or laptops.
3. SATA SSDs are cheaper.
Due to the factors mentioned above, SATA SSDs tend to be cheaper than PCIe SSDs. This is an important reason driving home users to choose SATA over PCIe.
After comparing PCIe SSD vs SATA, you should make a choice according to your own actual needs.
What about SSD vs SATA?
SSDs are more expensive and less common when compared to SATA drives (this may change in the future, who knows).
Click here if you’re interested in SSD data recovery.
Bonus: M.2 vs U.2
The shape, dimensions, and layouts of a physical device are specified by form factor standards – M.2 and U.2. According to study, I find both standards give support to PCIe and SATA connections.
M.2 is a safer choice for you when you don’t have an idea of which one to choose; that is simply because it is more common. In contrast, U.2 is not so common; it is mainly used in Intel 750 series SSDs.
There is no difference between the regular SATA form factor and the SATA SSD with M.2. However, the introducing of M.2 in a PCIe SSD will change a lot. With a M.2 PCIe SSD, you’re limited to x4 lanes (which is more than enough for a common home user).