I'm trying to decide between getting a normal SSD or a SATA card for my PC. Right now, I have 500GB of storage, and there's only room for one more SSD. I'd prefer not to buy a completely new SSD since that would mean re-downloading all my games. One of my friends suggested a SATA card instead. Are SATA cards comparable to standard SSDs in terms of performance? I'm considering the Samsung 870 EVO (Pro) for my setup, specifically for playing RDR2.
4 Answers
It really depends on your setup. If you opt for an M.2 drive, it will likely offer higher read and write speeds compared to a SATA SSD. But don’t underestimate SATA drives either; they’re still quite fast for most uses. Also, if you're worried about redownloading games, you might want to consider cloning your existing drive instead of starting from scratch.
Not to be confusing, but when you mention "normal SSD", make sure you distinguish between the two main types out there. You have 2.5" SATA SSDs and M.2 drives, which can be either SATA or NVMe. If you can only have one drive connected at a time, think about either cloning your current drive or how much hassle it'll be to reinstall everything, regardless of what you choose.
Yeah, when you say SATA card, are you referring to a SATA III SSD? If that’s the case, you can definitely go for an extra SATA SSD. You probably won’t see noticeable performance drops compared to an M.2 drive.
SATA SSDs aren't quite the best option these days since NVMe drives have taken the lead in terms of speed. While SATA SSDs can still handle games just fine, they're getting pretty rare, and prices aren’t that much cheaper than NVMe. If you have an available NVMe slot, that's likely the better route.
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