I have an available PCIe x1 slot on my motherboard, and I'm considering using it for some additional storage. I've found an adapter that would let me connect an NVMe drive, but I'm not sure if that's the best route since I know the speeds will be pretty limited by the PCIe x1 slot. If my main goal is just to add storage, should I go for that adapter with a lower-speed NVMe drive, or are there better options I'm missing? Oh, and I completely overlooked SATA drives—my bad!
2 Answers
It really depends on your PCIe version. If your PCIe x1 slot is the newer standard (like PCIe 4.0 or 5.0), an NVMe drive will be faster than a SATA SSD, even if it won’t reach full NVMe speeds. Like, 4GB/s on PCIe 5.0 beats SATA for sure! Just keep in mind that older PCIe versions will bottleneck higher-speed NVMe drives, but you'll still get decent performance from them compared to a SATA SSD.
You might want to consider using a SATA drive since it's probably more straightforward. If you have SATA ports available, a 2.5" SATA SSD is often a better bet for extra storage without the complications of slower NVMe speeds on that x1 slot.
Yeah, I totally forgot about SATA drives! Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks, but I think I’ll take the easy route with SATA since I have those ports free!