PCIe SSDs slowly replacing SATA3 SSD

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.

 

Don`t ruin implants in consumers` heads - true enthusiast should use only newest hardware.

 

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.

 

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.

 

I have an M2 for OS drive, it's nice.
One thing though, how do you migrate an M2 drive to another M2 drive when your old one is dying?

 

Is SATA4 a thing ? Or even coming ?

 

Apparently not

StorageReview
We've been told by people in the working group that SATA will not be developed further.
Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/storage/comments/aaqgr9/will_there_be_a_sata_iv/

 

SAS 12 Gb/s has been a thing for years, can't they readily port this over to SATA?

 

M2 is nice to have but definitely not essential and day to day t's very hard to notice any difference compared to a normal SSD and for the average user, they will not notice any difference.

Unless we really start going the micro PC route for the majority of PCs sold where space is really at a premium, I can't see why manufactures would change from SSD to M2 until it's cheaper for them to do so and at the moment M2 are much more expensive than SSD

 

M.2 is just the form factor... it's NVMe you guys are talking about.
I think M.2 SATA makes the most sense right now.

 

Good point! My bad.

 

My issue with NVMe ssd's is that with consumer cpu's that only have 16 pcie lanes, you use up 4 up those lanes on the NVMe, meaning your gpu will only be running with 8 pcie lanes. Now this might not make a huge difference performance wise with a single gpu, but it can still affect performance, especially at 4k, and i personally wouldn't ever sacrifice potential performance for slightly faster loading times.

 

That would be pretty dangerous. M.2 drives are long and have thin PCBs.

If anything, M.2 Slot itself may be rotated in way that M.2 PCB is angled by 90° from MB. (Like mentioned memory.)
That would be less risky in case that M.2 slot itself can be robust enough. And in space of one M.2 drive, one could then fit 4. (If CPU has sufficient free PCIe lanes. Which is why non-server/workstation users do not actually need such solution.)

 

Yesterday i cancelled my order of a 2 tb 660p from intel.

At first i got excited of how cheap it is but then i read how it's speed gets crippled once it gets half full. QLC is cheap for a reason.

 

@Fox2232 good point, but in time new CPU's will change this and the cost will go down so
"slowly replacing" is the right word.

 

It was bound to happen as M.2 is a lot smarter than SATA which requires additional cables and is connected directly to the PSU.

In terms of NVME, it's nice but most users won't feel any difference between the 2.

 

I think the whole problem with any PCIe based storage is proportionally related to the utilization of your "motherboard's" lanes. CPU/chipset manufactures need to increase available lanes if we ever want to see sole M.2 (NVME) adoption. My motherboard "only" has 24 lanes of which most of them are being used by my GPU/m.2/sound card/wife card.
I wholeheartedly agree with EvilDead that we need to move them vertically to conserve space and increase access to them. I have to take my freaking GPU out to even get to it. If they were neatly stacked next to each other as our RAM is life would be better. Personally stopped buying SATA SSD's 2 years ago and I only recommend them to folks who wish to bring new life into "older" setups. OEM's are already seeing diminishing SATA SSD's sales which will undoubtedly shape our very near future towards greater adoption.

 

Motherboards take that into account and won't offer multiple NVME M.2 slots usually.
you can use M.2 SATA based without taking PCIE lanes.