Samsung 980 Pro 500GB Gen4 M.2 SSD

Background on Solid State Drives

Solid-state drives (SSDs) store data electrically, rather than on magnetic disks like traditional hard drives (HDDs). This means there is virtually no delay when seeking a specific bit of data, and there is no physical limitation to how fast reading and writing of data can happen. Instead, the limits come down to the controller inside the drive, the speed at which the individual flash memory chips can transfer information, and the connection between the drive and the rest of the computer.

These drives are available in many physical forms: 2.5-inch (similar in size to laptop HDDs), PCI-Express (which slot into a system like a graphics card), and M.2 "sticks". The more traditionally shaped drives usually connect to motherboards via SATA, just like hard drives do, and that connection itself tends to be the limiting factor in their performance. M.2 drives can use either SATA or the much faster PCI-Express connection, depending on the drive itself and the motherboard it is installed in. There are also U.2 drives, which are close in size to the 2.5-inch models but use a much faster data connection; they are found more often in servers and datacenters than in desktop workstations.