Most people would have definitely heard of these terms such as PATA, SATA, PCIe, NVME, at some point in time. However, in reality, these have been thrown around very loosely, in that it can be conceptually very hard to understand and confusing. So, EHDR would like to share more about this topic today.

Diagram 1: SATA HDD

Diagram 2: PATA/IDE HDD

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) is an evolution of the Parallel ATA (PATA) interface that was developed for connecting a host system (A connector) to peripheral devices, such as hard disk drives and optical storage drives. In the diagram above, the SATA Interface includes data connecters alongside a power segment. This is important as such design is exclusive only to SATA Interfaces. However, we have to note here that the term “SATA” by itself can be used in different cases. In my own words, I differentiate them as “functions” and “connector”. SATA function can be employed in both Solid State Drives (SSDs) as well as Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). Mini SATA shares similar technological functions as SATA, just in a different size and form factor.
Diagram 3: NVME SSD

Diagram 4:  SATA SSD

NVMe, by itself, refers to the function in Solid State Drives (SSDs) while PCIe can be a general term used also like an interface or interconnector of high speed component (Connector). Even though PCIe works well with NVMe SSD, it can also connect with SATA SSD.

SATA Port, PCIe Port

Both SATA and PCIe is a connector for storage media.

Function of SATA vs Function of NVME

Both handle data differently. NVMe SSD pertains to specific non-volatile storage media, such as NAND Flash Memory in SSDs. Read & write speed wise, NVMe outmatches SATA quite significantly. The read/write speed of NVMe SSD can reach up to 3000 MB/s which SATA SSD Cannot.

EHDR, We Leave No Data Behinds