The weak point for years (even decades) of computers and consoles has been in the storage unit. The arrival of SATA SSDs and, later, those based on PCIe solved this problem, but we came across reality. But would it be interesting resurrect the SATA interface for SSDs seen PCIe problems?
Currently, the SATA interface is completely obsolete, if compared to the M.2 PCIe interface. It can be seen on the PS5 and Xbox Series X, which are based on M.2 NVMe memories. Laptops also ditched 2.5-inch SATA SSDs in favor of M.2 NVMe, to make systems more compact and lightweight.
The industry has come up against harsh reality
During this year, new M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Intel already offers support for these storage units, especially since last year thanks to the Intel Core 12th Gen. But, to date, there is no no trace of these new units storage and there is a reason.
After the marketing of speeds of 12,000 MB/s This is reality, which is none other than temperature and performance. It’s fine to talk about 12,000 MB/s read and write, but, At what price ? And it is that the problem of PCIe 5.0 SSDs lies in the temperature, which will be so critical that it forces put fans on these units storage.
They standardized the M.2 PCIe interface and most likely got it wrong. First of all, already PCIe 3.0 SSDs are enough for gaming, PCIe 4.0 contributes little and PCIe 5.0, nothing and less. We’ve gone from a great solution to a saturated market that doesn’t make much sense, at least currently.
The industry has become obsessed with selling gear, ignoring the problems of these units. When they heat up, they lose performance to protect themselves, even wearing heat sinks. These are special times, because the importance of SSDs for gaming is limited.
The great sacrifice in this sprint (pun intended) is the SATA interface. The makers let it die, currently being in the background for everyone. But it could be improved and be as good or better than M.2 PCIe interface and helper correct the temperature problem. You just have to see the SAS4 interfacewhich offers twice the read and write speeds of SATA 3.
I wish it was all a temperature issue
Yes, we talked about temperature issues, which is one of the big problems with M.2 SSDs, but not the only one. Currently, it is very difficult to find an M.2 which has a capacity of 8TB, very difficult and they are brutally expensive. It seems that, if the layers are not increased, we will hardly see any SSD with a capacity above 4TB.
Interestingly, this problem is also solved by the SATA interface. 2.5-inch SSDs have more usable space, allowing you to create larger capacity drives. We could have an 8 TB SSD in 2.5 inch format without problem or much larger. But the fact is that the SATA interface no longer interests SSD manufacturers, who leave it aside.
It makes sense that M.2 would be chosen for laptops, as they are more compact and thinner, that’s fine. But in desktop computers there are no problems with space, moreover, in today’s towers there is only space left. However, all this space is left empty most of the time and is wasted. And it is that the manufacturers have already abandoned the SATA port and there is no return to this nonsense.
