NVMe SSDs are known for their high data read/write speeds. With most of the NVMe SSDs, you can easily reach up to the read speed of 2500MB/s (The highest theoretical speed is 3GB/s with PCIe 3.0). However, the SATA SSDs are limited to the speed of 600MB/s because of the usage of the AHCI protocol.
So, if your laptop or desktop motherboard supports the NVMe protocol, you should definitely go for the NVMe SSD. Fortunately, most of the latest motherboards will have at least one M.2 NVMe port. But, you will have to double-check it. Make sure to read more about the NVMe SSDs in this article.
Lots of people keep asking about the NVMe and their features against the normal SATA and M.2 PCIe SSDs. So, here I am again for you to give 10 reasons to buy an NVMe SSD and not the SATA.
Also Read: 6 Reasons not to buy SATA SSD in 2023
1. Your system supports the NVMe protocol
Congratulations if your motherboard supports the NVMe protocol and has a free M.2 NVMe port. Lots of people are so unfortunate that they know about the NVMe and have budgets to buy but their system is unable to run and support.
Along with that, I have seen lots of motherboards that can run the NVMe drives as their storage device but the BIOS or UEFI will not have the option to use the NVMe SSD as the boot drive. So, if your laptop or desktop motherboard has support for the NVMe, it is perhaps the first and primary reason to go for an NVMe.
In order to check your system’s compatibility with NVMe, I would not suggest any third-party tool. The first thing to do is to check the user manual of your motherboard. Alternatively, get in touch with your system manufacturer’s support services and confirm whether your system has support and BIOS has support for NVMe.
2. NVMe SSDs are blazing fast
If we look at the consumer-level SSDs at affordable prices, M.2 NVMe SSDs are the fastest drives out there. The maximum theoretical read (sequential) speed of an NVMe M.2 SSD is 3500MB/s on PCIe 3.0 x4 lanes. However, 2000 to 2500MB/s is the normal speed you will get with any NVMe drive from any popular brand.
The write speed can vary according to the system and other factors. But, I have seen most of the drives offering 1500 to 2500MB/s write speed (sequential). So, you can imagine how fast these SSDs are.
It directly means that if you are installing your OS and important software on your NVMe, there will be no bottlenecks related to the storage even with a very high-end processor and other hardware components. I believe this is another great reason to choose NVMe over the SATA SSDs.
3. NVMe SSDs are no longer out of budgets
From most of the popular brands like Crucial, ADATA, Kingston, you can easily buy a 1TB NVMe SSD for 100 USD or even less than that. 500GB SSD is enough for normal users with normal usage. So, it is possible to buy an SSD for just 50 to 60$ and make the most out of your system.
There is another great way to utilize the speed and performance of your SSD. You can buy a small-sized NVMe drive i.e. 120 or 240GB and install your OS and important software on it. The HDD or a SATA SSD can also be kept along with it for raw data storage. This process is called an SSD+HDD combo which you can find in this article.
4. NVMe has very low latency
The M.2 NVMe SSDs use the PCIe lanes which are connected directly to the processor. It means that whenever your system needs any file to perform an operation, the information will be available within a fraction of a second. As compared to the SATA SSDs, NVMe SSDs come with very low latency periods. In some popular NVMe SSDs, the total latency can be lower than 100 μs.
It means, for any kind of operation, whether it is booting up your system or firing up a software, everything will get done with a blazing fast speed. Your processor never have to wait long for the data to be fetched from the storage system.
5. NVMe SSDs are compact and lightweight
As we discussed earlier, NVMe SSDs are build on M.2 form factor. There could be different heights but the maximum height and width can never go beyond 110mm and 22mm respectively. So, along with the fast read/write speed, NVMe SSDs will have lesser weight as compared to the SATA SSDs.
These SSDs will occupy very little space and can reduce your system’s overall weight by eliminating the bulky HDDs. A normal M.2 NVMe SSD can weigh around 6-8grams. However, the weight of the same SSD with a heatsink may go beyond 20grams.
Because of this reason, NVMe SSDs are great to make high-speed SSD raids. You can easily buy a PCIe Add-on card to install multiple NVMe SSDs on a single board and use them for high-end purposes.
6. NVMe is the need for high-end computer systems
If you are building a top-notch computer for gaming, video editing, machine learning, or any other task, NVMe is your need.
Let me explain this briefly.
For a powerful computer, you will surely be going to use a powerful processor, GPU, along with more than 16GB RAM with a very high-frequency.
All these hardware components will demand the data at a very high-pace. Your SATA 3 SSD with 600MB/s highest read/write speed can never fulfil those data demands. So, just because you are using a SATA SSD with all those powerful components, the whole system will face a bottleneck.
So, if you are in the same situation, I would advice to at least use the NVMe SSD for operating system and software installation. You can keep your SATA SSD or even the HDD for raw data storage.
Conclusion
Let me know if you have another reason to buy an NVMe SSD in your mind. I would definitely love to hear from your side now. Consider sharing this article with others.
Thanks for reading!