Noob question - why would I ever pick sata?

[katie279]

Hi folks,

Sorry for daft question, but seem to have missed all the goss on m2 storage arriving.

Is there any reason I'd pick sata ssd in a new pc? Transfer rates of m2 drives seem way beyond data and prices don't appear to be that much more.

Just wondering if any nuances I'm missing or if m2 is just going to replace it completely in time

 

[Quartz]

You only have a few M2 slots and M2 drives are of limited capacity. You find a 4 TB M2 drive.

 

[katie279]

Ok so go with m2 unless restrained by capacity it sounds like

 

[andy_mk3]

Transfer rates of m2 drives seem way beyond data and prices don't appear to be that much more.

Be aware that M.2 is just a connector. It can be M.2 SATA which is exactly the same as a SATA port in terms of speed and compatibility. M.2 nvme is where you will have seen the blisteringly fast speeds, and isn't supported on SATA only M.2 ports. But most M.2 ports are now nvme compatible.

The bonus of M.2 is no power/sata cables to run being the main item. Nvme is also another big benefit.

 

[Marsman]

No point in getting a M.2 drive unless it's NVMe, from what I can see. M.2 slots are too few to waste using on SATA, unless you end up with no more SATA ports on the board.

If you are going to look at getting a M.2 SATA drive, look out for how it performs. There are some M.2 SATA drives that perform much worse than 2.5" equivalent.

 

[Audigex]

Most motherboards only have 1 or 2 M.2 slots: so if you want more than 2 drives, you're going to need either a PCIe M.2 expansion card, or to use SATA drives

I agree that if you're buying a new boot drive, it's worth getting an M.2 NVMe drive: but there's still a lot of uses for SATA in multi-drive systems

 

[MrRockliffe]

Don’t forget to factor in cost, even if price differences are shame Little real world performance gain for M.2 but can be a large price difference for some drives.