The market is currently covered by SSDs of all capacities and formats, but if there are two types that clearly differ, they are SATA and 2.5 inch and NVMe, in M.2 format. The first were the ones that initially hit the market, and today we find them at much cheaper prices than NVMe. On the contrary, the performance of SATA SSDs stagnates while that of NVMe is constantly increasing, and is currently up to 10 times higher.
SATA SSD or NVMe, when to invest in one or the other?
Let’s assume that you have a limited budget, say 100 dollars. With that money, you can go for a premium 1TB SATA 3 SSD or low-capacity low-end NVMe.
The reality is that even the cheapest NVMe PCIe SSD will deliver more than twice the performance of the best SATA 3 SSD, but that extra performance will actually make a big difference in user experience or not depending on what it is. must use. For example, we already showed you in our SATA SSD vs NVMe comparison that an NVMe SSD with 3500MB / s read speed doesn’t offer much of a difference for gaming compared to a 560MB SATA SSD / s of speed.
Obviously an NVMe SSD offers lower loading times, faster startup and in general a better ease of the whole system, but the downside is that for the same price it offers us a much lower capacity, and in the Most cases (remember we are comparing a high end SSD with a low end SSD) also have a shorter lifespan. However, when we talk about copying files or working with very large files, this is where an NVMe SSD really makes a difference and can save us a lot of time in terms of file management (we talk about tasks audio and video editing, for example)).
Thus, the choice will depend on the use you will make of the device; In general, it is more convenient to buy a high-end SATA 3 SSD because it will offer better capacity, more durability and more options like encryption, garbage collection, etc., in exchange for not perform as well as that provided by an NVMe Bottom End. On the contrary, if you intend to perform tasks with large files or are looking to rush to the last second of performance, even the lowest-end NVMe will give you better results than a SATA SSD, but be aware of the downsides this has (less capacity, less durability, etc.).
The high end is high for a reason
In all product categories, the high end is so called not only because it offers the best performance (which is usually the case, even a high end SATA 3 SSD pushes the interface to the limit), but because the combination of all its characteristics is the one that places it at the top of all rankings. The low-end line, on the other hand, tends to feature “cheap” devices, of poor quality, concise features, and generally products that you will later regret buying.
In the electronics market, it is usually always more affordable to acquire the high end of the previous generations than the low end of the current generations, because you get a better, more durable product at a better price, even if it may not have the latest technology. . which gives you access to the best performance as happens between SATA SSD and NVMe PCIe.