HDDs are gradual, however inexpensive, and nonetheless generally used for pure information storage. NVMe SSDs are the present gold normal, with their blazing speeds and ease of use. However what is the present area of interest for SATA SSDs, aside from showing in PCs the place there’s virtually no different selection?
Let’s face it: SATA SSDs are too outdated for 2026, and as we ring within the new 12 months, it is excessive time all of us moved on.
SATA SSDs are caught up to now
They make much less and fewer sense with every passing 12 months.
I nonetheless keep in mind getting my first SATA SSD. The pace improve from an HDD to that SATA SSD blew my thoughts. Out of the blue, Home windows not took lengthy minutes to load—it was revolutionary.
However that was a few years in the past. As of late, SATA SSDs have gotten a factor of the previous … or they’re already there, I would say.
The issue with SATA SSDs is that they’ve hit a wall. They can’t be any sooner than they’re proper now, and that is nonetheless an entire lot slower than NVMe drives. They’ve HDDs beat, however truthfully, in addition they do not fairly fulfill the identical use case.
Flagship SATA drives nonetheless cap at a most of 560MB/s, and there is not any approach up from right here. PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs have them beat, to not point out Gen 4 and Gen 5 drives.
NVMe received the battle, and the worth hole is nearly gone
If SATA SSDs have been cheaper, they’d at the least have some benefit.
NVMe SSDs use the PCIe interface, which makes them scalable, and PCIe doubles its potential bandwidth with every technology. At this level, the fastest NVMe SSDs are mostly a waste of money, as older PCIe 4.0 drives are nonetheless greater than quick sufficient for almost all of customers.
If that argument wasn’t sufficient, there’s additionally the matter of pricing. SATA SSDs are just too shut in value to their NVMe counterparts.
A fast have a look at Amazon reveals me {that a} SATA III SSD within the 2.5-inch type issue, with speeds as much as 560MB/s, prices round $100. I discovered fashions from Western Digital, Essential (which is able to quickly, sadly, be gone from the patron market), and SanDisk, throughout that $100 per 1TB mark.
With NVMe SSDs, we’ve got a bigger pattern measurement as a result of there are a number of PCIe generations to select from. The latest PCIe 5.0 SSDs value extra per TB, however PCIe Gen 4 drives could be discovered beginning at round $105. This contains less-known manufacturers, but additionally extra recognizable producers like Essential, Gigabyte Aorus, and XPG.
You get the perfect bang in your buck by shopping for a 2TB SSD, as 1TB options cost more per terabyte. Even stable, recognizable SSDs just like the Samsung 990 Evo Plus could be purchased for round $175, and that is not even the most cost effective 2TB SSD on the market.
In brief: With worse efficiency, no scalability, and the identical pricing, SATA SSDs actually do not have a leg to face on.
SATA falls behind in additional than simply speeds
It is outdated in additional methods than one
My argument goes past “SATA is unhealthy and gradual.” The reality is that SATA SSDs have been designed round a lot decrease most speeds and decrease parallelism, and each of these issues contribute to them changing into outdated {hardware}.
SATA SSDs use the AHCI interface, which was made at a time when storage was so much slower than it’s now.
AHCI solely has a single command queue and may solely ship as much as 32 instructions. In the meantime, NVMe helps as much as 64,000 queues, and every can maintain as much as 64,000 instructions. NVMe SSDs are engineered to deal with plenty of small requests all on the identical time and not using a hitch; the identical cannot be stated of SATA drives.
2.5-inch SATA drives additionally simply do not have that very same ease of use as M.2 drives do. And whereas M.2 SATA SSDs exist, there’s little or no level in shopping for considered one of them until your particular setup requires it.
So, we’re taking a look at an enormous efficiency hole in each approach doable: pace, latency, and talent to parse 1000’s of instructions at a time.
It isn’t a matter of inventing one thing higher at this level. The way forward for SSDs lies in NVMe, which may scale and scale and scale, whereas SATA SSDs have reached their absolute most potential.
The place SATA nonetheless is smart in 2026
They don’t seem to be fully ineffective—but.
Assuming that your PC or laptop computer can deal with each a SATA and an NVMe SSD, there’s actually not a lot profit in going with a SATA drive. However, for older PCs and laptops, a 2.5-inch drive could merely be the one choice.
In case your laptop solely has SATA bays and no M.2 slots, a SATA SSD will nonetheless be higher than an HDD by way of switch speeds. These 2.5-inch SATAs also can find yourself in a NAS should you occur to have a few of them mendacity round.
Sadly, the so-called RAM-pocalypse is spreading to storage, as enterprise AI demand is destroying the NAND flash provide that may very well be used for shopper SSDs. Which may give SATA SSDs an unwarranted breath of recent life. NVMe SSD costs have been on a gradual rise for a number of months, they usually present no indicators of stopping. In the event that they carry on rising, the entire worth facet of the SATA vs. NVMe argument could also be flipped on its head.
What to purchase as an alternative
Something besides SATA, mainly.
When searching for an SSD of any form, it is essential to do not forget that an NVMe SSD is not routinely an M.2 type issue. Equally, M.2 SATA SSDs can populate that slot in your motherboard, however not all M.2 slots are suitable with SATA drives. Set up the shape issue that works in your PC and work inside its constraints.
So long as you’ve an M.2 slot obtainable, purchase a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. They’re an amazing worth decide proper now, and until you’re employed in content material creation or take care of enormous information transfers every single day, you actually do not want a PCIe 5.0 SSD.
SATA SSDs performed an essential half within the transition from HDDs to NVMe SSDs, however now, they’re slowly changing into out of date. Wanting not having another selection, I’d suggest avoiding them in each state of affairs.
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