Communication Standards – Protocols and Interfaces
Solid-state drives are not as young as people often think, the first device being created in 1991, with ideas stretching back to 1978. The technology evolved, so much so that drives were maxing out the 6 Gbit/s SATA bandwidth. Given that the interface became a bottleneck, a new one was invented, called NVM Express, or shortly, NVMe.
The battle of NVMe vs SATA is not all about speed, but also compatibility and price.
SATA – SATA or Serial ATA is an interface used to connect storage drives, mostly hard-drives and solid-state drives, as well as optical drives. Most drives using the SATA connector use the Advanced Host Controller Interface or AHCI to communicate with the rest of the computer. This was perfect for mechanical drives or hard-drives, but solid-state drives quickly maxed out the bandwidth.