5 reasons you don't need to upgrade your SATA SSD yet
Tanveer Singh
When 2.5-inch SATA SSDs finally became affordable, the popularity of hard drives naturally saw a huge dip. Switching from a hard drive to a SATA SSD promised an instant boost to system responsiveness, boot times, and game loading times. We had been using hard drives for ages, but when SATA SSDs offered three times the speed for only slightly higher prices, we jumped at the opportunity.
In contrast, the rapid development of NVMe SSDs hasn't completely pushed SATA SSDS out of the market. Even an older Gen3 SSD can offer 4 to 6 times faster speeds than SATA SSDs at almost the same price, so you shouldn't really consider buying a SATA SSD at this point if you are shopping. However, this doesn't mean that you should be rushing to get rid of an existing SATA SSD in favor of an NVMe drive.
Your SATA SSD is fast enough for gaming
Diminishing returns
For gamers, one of the major motivations to switch to faster storage is cutting down on loading times, which makes sense since many modern titles tend to have arduously long wait times when a new environment needs to be loaded, or when the player fast-travels to another location on the map. However, you might not improve your loading times too much by switching from a SATA SSD to an NVMe SSD.
The difference in how smooth your PC feels and how fast games load is huge when you jump from a conventional hard drive to a SATA SSD, but the same difference is minimal when making the switch from SATA to an NVMe SSD. Sure, your new NVMe drive might boast 5,000MB/s-14,000MB/s read times, but these are sequential transfer speeds that don't really benefit games. This is why Gen 5 SSDs are still useless for a gaming-only build.
If your existing SATA SSD is large enough, still has enough free space for current and future titles, and isn't showing any signs of failure or reduced performance, I'd suggest you keep using it instead of dreaming about a day-and-night difference in your games with an NVMe SSD, because that is not going to happen.
You won't slash boot times with an NVMe SSD
No reason to give your SATA SSD the boot
Similar to gaming performance, the difference in boot times between a SATA SSD and an NVMe SSD isn't too significant to warrant replacing the former with the latter. Beyond a certain point, the read/write speeds of your boot drive don't result in a reduced boot time. Newer versions of Windows have consistently been improving boot times, especially with Fast Boot enabled.
Of course, if you are running out of space on your SATA SSD, and need to buy a new drive, it doesn't make sense to purchase a SATA model anymore — you'd essentially be paying almost the same for an objectively inferior product. Boot times and game loading times might be similar on SATA and NVMe drives, but that doesn't mean you can't benefit from the latter in other areas, or that you should save a few bucks on an outdated technology.
Your old motherboard might not support NVMe drives
Old is gold? Yes, when you don't have a choice
One instance where you might be forced to limit yourself to SATA drives is when you have an older computer whose motherboard does not have any M.2 slots. If you're thinking of swapping your existing SATA SSD with a new NVMe drive, you'd have to buy a new motherboard, which would probably mean buying a new CPU and RAM as well. The alternative would be to buy a USB to NVMe enclosure with which you can connect the NVMe drive externally, but that would kind of defeat the point of buying a high-speed drive, as you would be limited by the USB port's bandwidth.
Besides your primary desktop or laptop, if you have an HTPC, media server, or family computer in your home that doesn't support NVMe drives, SATA SSDs can come to the rescue if you want to expand storage without the hassle of investing in a full platform upgrade. Considering the needs of secondary computers like these, you are not going to be losing out on any performance by going SATA over NVMe.
DirectStorage is still not popular
The promise of next-gen loading times is still unfulfilled
DirectStorage was meant to be this game-changing technology that would revolutionize gaming performance by leveraging the blazing-fast transfer speeds of the latest NVMe SSDs. While it has shown promise in a handful of titles, it hasn't really gained popular adoption by game developers, at least not yet. So, investing in the latest Gen 5 SSDs and thinking that your games would suddenly perform much better with DirectStorage isn't a sensible move.
You might consider Gen 5 SSDs with the hope of using them to the fullest when DirectStorage finally becomes popular, but even that is a notion only new PC builders should entertain. If you have been using your SATA SSD for a while without any problems, you can safely ignore DirectStorage and high-speed NVMe SSDs for the foreseeable future.
Your SATA SSD might not be the bottleneck
This might be a shock to some
Another reason you might be tempted to replace your SATA SSD with a faster drive is that you feel your PC is slow and not performing as well as it used to. Maybe Windows is booting slower, files and folders are taking longer to open, and you frequently suffer from 100% disk usage. Sadly, it's possible none of these symptoms are linked to your SATA SSD.
The reasons for experiencing slowdowns on a PC can range from a nearly full drive, insufficient RAM, a stray program hogging resources, overheating, malware, or even outdated drivers. Sometimes, updates to Windows or other programs can introduce bugs that inadvertently end up slowing down your system. On other occasions, if you have a faulty hard drive connected to the PC, it can easily affect the responsiveness of the overall system.
Before you decide to blame your SATA SSD, try to eliminate all the other possible sources of system slowdown. You could also scan Windows for corrupt files or reinstall it for a fresh start.
Don't give up on SATA SSDs just yet
SATA SSDs might have been superseded in both performance and cost by NVMe SSDs, but users who are still running a SATA SSD need not upgrade in haste. There are minimal benefits in many areas when switching to an NVMe SSD, plus you might have to invest in a full platform upgrade if your motherboard doesn't support NVMe drives.
It's still a long way before SATA SSDs become extinct. Hell, even hard drives are still worth it for certain use cases. So, don't fret over your SATA SSD, keep using it for a few more years, but when you buy a new drive, get an NVMe SSD (if your system supports it).
Tanveer Singh
When 2.5-inch SATA SSDs finally became affordable, the popularity of hard drives naturally saw a huge dip. Switching from a hard drive to a SATA SSD promised an instant boost to system responsiveness, boot times, and game loading times. We had been using hard drives for ages, but when SATA SSDs offered three times the speed for only slightly higher prices, we jumped at the opportunity.
In contrast, the rapid development of NVMe SSDs hasn't completely pushed SATA SSDS out of the market. Even an older Gen3 SSD can offer 4 to 6 times faster speeds than SATA SSDs at almost the same price, so you shouldn't really consider buying a SATA SSD at this point if you are shopping. However, this doesn't mean that you should be rushing to get rid of an existing SATA SSD in favor of an NVMe drive.
Your SATA SSD is fast enough for gaming
Diminishing returns
For gamers, one of the major motivations to switch to faster storage is cutting down on loading times, which makes sense since many modern titles tend to have arduously long wait times when a new environment needs to be loaded, or when the player fast-travels to another location on the map. However, you might not improve your loading times too much by switching from a SATA SSD to an NVMe SSD.
The difference in how smooth your PC feels and how fast games load is huge when you jump from a conventional hard drive to a SATA SSD, but the same difference is minimal when making the switch from SATA to an NVMe SSD. Sure, your new NVMe drive might boast 5,000MB/s-14,000MB/s read times, but these are sequential transfer speeds that don't really benefit games. This is why Gen 5 SSDs are still useless for a gaming-only build.
If your existing SATA SSD is large enough, still has enough free space for current and future titles, and isn't showing any signs of failure or reduced performance, I'd suggest you keep using it instead of dreaming about a day-and-night difference in your games with an NVMe SSD, because that is not going to happen.
You won't slash boot times with an NVMe SSD
No reason to give your SATA SSD the boot
Similar to gaming performance, the difference in boot times between a SATA SSD and an NVMe SSD isn't too significant to warrant replacing the former with the latter. Beyond a certain point, the read/write speeds of your boot drive don't result in a reduced boot time. Newer versions of Windows have consistently been improving boot times, especially with Fast Boot enabled.
Of course, if you are running out of space on your SATA SSD, and need to buy a new drive, it doesn't make sense to purchase a SATA model anymore — you'd essentially be paying almost the same for an objectively inferior product. Boot times and game loading times might be similar on SATA and NVMe drives, but that doesn't mean you can't benefit from the latter in other areas, or that you should save a few bucks on an outdated technology.
Your old motherboard might not support NVMe drives
Old is gold? Yes, when you don't have a choice
One instance where you might be forced to limit yourself to SATA drives is when you have an older computer whose motherboard does not have any M.2 slots. If you're thinking of swapping your existing SATA SSD with a new NVMe drive, you'd have to buy a new motherboard, which would probably mean buying a new CPU and RAM as well. The alternative would be to buy a USB to NVMe enclosure with which you can connect the NVMe drive externally, but that would kind of defeat the point of buying a high-speed drive, as you would be limited by the USB port's bandwidth.
Besides your primary desktop or laptop, if you have an HTPC, media server, or family computer in your home that doesn't support NVMe drives, SATA SSDs can come to the rescue if you want to expand storage without the hassle of investing in a full platform upgrade. Considering the needs of secondary computers like these, you are not going to be losing out on any performance by going SATA over NVMe.
DirectStorage is still not popular
The promise of next-gen loading times is still unfulfilled
DirectStorage was meant to be this game-changing technology that would revolutionize gaming performance by leveraging the blazing-fast transfer speeds of the latest NVMe SSDs. While it has shown promise in a handful of titles, it hasn't really gained popular adoption by game developers, at least not yet. So, investing in the latest Gen 5 SSDs and thinking that your games would suddenly perform much better with DirectStorage isn't a sensible move.
You might consider Gen 5 SSDs with the hope of using them to the fullest when DirectStorage finally becomes popular, but even that is a notion only new PC builders should entertain. If you have been using your SATA SSD for a while without any problems, you can safely ignore DirectStorage and high-speed NVMe SSDs for the foreseeable future.
Your SATA SSD might not be the bottleneck
This might be a shock to some
Another reason you might be tempted to replace your SATA SSD with a faster drive is that you feel your PC is slow and not performing as well as it used to. Maybe Windows is booting slower, files and folders are taking longer to open, and you frequently suffer from 100% disk usage. Sadly, it's possible none of these symptoms are linked to your SATA SSD.
The reasons for experiencing slowdowns on a PC can range from a nearly full drive, insufficient RAM, a stray program hogging resources, overheating, malware, or even outdated drivers. Sometimes, updates to Windows or other programs can introduce bugs that inadvertently end up slowing down your system. On other occasions, if you have a faulty hard drive connected to the PC, it can easily affect the responsiveness of the overall system.
Before you decide to blame your SATA SSD, try to eliminate all the other possible sources of system slowdown. You could also scan Windows for corrupt files or reinstall it for a fresh start.
Don't give up on SATA SSDs just yet
SATA SSDs might have been superseded in both performance and cost by NVMe SSDs, but users who are still running a SATA SSD need not upgrade in haste. There are minimal benefits in many areas when switching to an NVMe SSD, plus you might have to invest in a full platform upgrade if your motherboard doesn't support NVMe drives.
It's still a long way before SATA SSDs become extinct. Hell, even hard drives are still worth it for certain use cases. So, don't fret over your SATA SSD, keep using it for a few more years, but when you buy a new drive, get an NVMe SSD (if your system supports it).
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Summary
Title: No Need to Upgrade SATA SSD Immediately, Especially for Gaming Purposes
Tanveer Singh discusses why upgrading a SATA SSD may not be necessary at this time. While an NVMe SSD offers faster speeds, the difference in loading times for games is minimal compared to the jump from a hard drive
Tanveer Singh discusses why upgrading a SATA SSD may not be necessary at this time. While an NVMe SSD offers faster speeds, the difference in loading times for games is minimal compared to the jump from a hard drive