no RAM, no SSD and no GPU PCs. AI is taking us to the dark ages
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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The distinction between the NVME SSD and SATA SSD is really the bus its designed around and plugged into. One plugs into a mainboard directly and the other plugs into a cable.
Both are memory based storage. The SATA cable is just a transfer throughput bottleneck. But there is also limited real estate on the footprint of a mainboard. It is easier to plug cables onto a board to expand storage, where there may only be room for 2 or 3 M2 slots on a standard form factor board.
In my memory, SATA was just associated with 'clunky' and 'slow'. A severe bottleneck.
I'd mess around with hard drives a lot as a more tech-savvy student, frequently data striping, data wiping, defragging, partitioning, and all that, so when it was time to assemble something for myself I recall wanting to avoid that.
I remember looking at the speed of M.2 NVMe and SATA SSDs and thinking that M.2 NVMe totally blew SATA out of the water. I was enthusiastic about trying it, even though NVMe SSDs were very expensive then compared to now.
When I started playing games installed on the M.2 NVMe SSD, the difference in loading speed just blew me away. I'd play Fallout: New Vegas on an old laptop and then again on my custom build and the loading screen, before much closer to a minute if I recall correctly, would be gone in just one or a couple of seconds.
I don't have much of an opinion on other computer hardware types, brands, or manufacturers, but I am opinionated on NVMe: The M.2 NVMe SSD is hands down my favourite computer component. Say goodbye to slow data wiping software and algorithms, defragging, cables, etc.
The shift from unicore to multicore CPU architecture and other major changes in computer hardware haven't impressed me the way that the shift from hard drives to M.2 NVMe SSDs have. Cheap M.2 NVMe drives are still impressive, cheap CPUs and GPUs, by contrast, are frustratingly bad. A budget gaming or video editing build won't be let down by a cheap M.2 NVMe drive, but by the cheap CPU and GPU.
This will be a pinch on ALL SSD, including NVMe, not just a pinch on SATA SSD exclusively.
That has a lot less to do with SATA than SSD vs spinning disk.
Make a spinning disc connect via NVMe, and it'll be just as ow as that laptop.