SATA SSDs aren’t dead yet because they are available in online and offline stores. But, the trends are going towards the NVMe side. SATA SSDs have become the ideal storage medium for bulk data where moderate speed (higher than HDDs but slower than NVMes) can be tolerated. SATA as an interface isn’t absolute because most of the modern motherboards still come with SATA ports and PSUs with SATA cables.
Since its introduction in 2000, SATA (Serial ATA) has played an important role in shaping the landscape of storage drives. Because the same interface could be used for both hard drives and SATA 2.5″ drives, it became a great option for storage upgrades that actually gave visible performance boosts.
According to Persistent Market Research, the global SSD market is projected to expand from $45.6 million in 2023 to $124.3 million by 2030.
According to the Wise Guy Report, In 2023, the SATA SSD market was estimated at USD 29.25 billion, with a projection for growth up to USD 67.38 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 9.71%.
Although the applications of SATA SSDs have reduced, they still have applications. The best way to utilize the better price-to-capacity ratio of SATA SSDs is by using them as secondary storage drives besides the main OS drive (faster NVMe drive).
Declining shares of SATA in the Market
The NVMe SSDs hit the market in 2011. After that, the percentage of SATA market shares is consistently declining as compared to the NVMe market. By 2026, it is projected that the total market share of SATA SSDs in the SSD market will be lower than 10%.
On the other hand, by 2022, the SSDs using the PCIe interface (including NVMe and enterprise drives) had 65.3% share in the overall market.
A little overview of SATA
The Serial ATA, commonly referred to as SATA, was introduced as a faster replacement for the Parallel ATA (PATA) storage interface. Developed in the early 2000s, SATA was introduced as a much simpler and compact interface compared to PATA. At that time, it was much more scalable and faster based on the systems that we had at that time.
SATA started with a transfer rate of 1.5 Gbit/s, which was a huge improvement over what we got with the PATA. The SATA II offered 3 Gbit/s speed and SATA III doubled that to 6 Gbit/s. SATA was also hot-pluggable and had thinner cables that allowed for compact systems and improved airflow inside the cases.
Why is SATA considered “Dead” by some?
Because most modern computers and laptops come with the NVMe SSDs pre-installed, people think SATA is dead and is limited only to the external SATA SSDs. Most people with fast computers requiring faster NVMe drives would normally think there is no purpose for SATA drives now. Also, because NVMe drives are getting cheaper, it comes to mind that what is the reason to go for a SATA SSD.
Fewer SATA ports are coming with the modern motherboards but more M.2 slots are there. Some high-end motherboards don’t even have SATA ports.
In a nutshell, for high-performance users, SATA is pretty much dead. But, for people with legacy systems, tight budgets, and bulk storage requirements, SATA is still alive and worth going for.
SATA vs. NVMe
NVMe is a different and faster interface compared to SATA. It communicates directly to the CPU as opposed to the SATA interface that goes through the chipset. SATA can never go beyond the practical speed of 600 MB/s in both sequential and random formats. So, SATA has limitations especially when it comes to modern systems where demands for higher storage speeds are increasing.
Now, NVMe drives are compact, fast, efficient, and easily available. So, they have replaced the SATA SSDs almost completely as the primary OS drives. NVMe drives are getting cheaper and cheaper and contributing to the decreasing dominance of SATA SSDs in the market.
Where SATA Still Holds Ground?
While the NVMe SSDs and the PCIe interface have gathered all the attention and market share, SATA still have many applications and there are reasons we can say “SATA isn’t dead yet”. Let’s explore.
- Niche Scenarios and Legacy Systems: Many enterprise systems, especially those not on the trending edge of technology, still run on infrastructure built around SATA. Updating such systems is costly and mostly not worth it for the companies. So, they still use the SATA drives because they are available in the market and under good research.
- Cost Benefits: SATA SSDs, having been around for a while, tend to be more affordable than their NVMe counterparts. The amount of time in the market has allowed the technology to be much more refined and structured. So, the prices are lower even for the high storage capacities.
- Storage Capacities and Use in Specific Applications: It is easy to find SATA SSDs in bigger capacities like 4TB or 8TB at very cheap prices. So, for cold storage, backups, and moving the data, these drives are perfect. Most people use them as external drives with the help of enclosures.
- Gaming Scenarios and Productivity: There is an interesting video from Linus Tech Tips where people who weren’t aware of the system specifications were asked to test three different systems. Two of them were equipped with NVMe SSDs whereas one system had a SATA SSD. All of them guessed the system wrong. Practically, there was little to no difference in the software opening and the actual usage when compared between SATA and NVMe SSDs. Here is that video from Linus Tech Tips.
In essence, while SATA might not be at the forefront of the storage revolution anymore, its relevance isn’t entirely lost. The random read/write performance is what matters the most in general computer usage and SATA drives can offer significantly higher of that compared to the hard drive. So, in the older systems which are slower, SATA SSDs can be good even as the primary OS drives. However, for faster computers, they can still be used for raw data storage.
SATA SSDs have great applications in NAS systems as well where multiple drives are combined to create a network storage for home or small office purposes.
Random Speed of SATA SSDs and Its Relevance in Day-to-Day Performance
What actually determines the practical performance for content creation, gaming, editing, programming, etc? It is called the random performance of an SSD. Random speed determines how well a drive can provide the data stored at discrete locations. I have talked about the random data in this article.
For those operations, the SATA SSDs are still great for almost all kinds of normal users. The software loading times will hardly be very different in NVMe SSDs as compared to the SATA SSDs. However, in sequential performance (when working with large files like videos), you’ll actually see the performance drawbacks of the SATA Drives.
Modern SATA SSDs can typically achieve random read/write speeds ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second). These numbers might look smaller than that of the modern NVMe drives but they are still good enough for most low-end or average computers.
For the vast majority of users, SATA SSDs offer a performance that’s not just satisfactory, but impressive, especially when migrating from older HDDs.
Why do I still use SATA SSDs?
SATA drives offer substantial storage space at a fraction of the cost of their NVMe counterparts. I generally keep my computers backed up inside good SATA SSDs. In fact, in my old laptop using an 8th Gen i3 processor, I have been using the SATA SSD as the primary OS drive for the last 4 years. I have tried using NVMe SSD in it but I get no better results except higher sequential performance for moving big files here and there.
Conclusion:
SATA is dead for fast computers and enthusiasts. But, it isn’t dead for low-end computers, backup setups, NAS, and some enterprise environments. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.