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NVMe

A solid-state drive that talks over the fast PCIe bus, usually on an M.2 stick, far quicker than SATA.

NVMe NVMe SSDs run over the PCIe bus on an M.2 stick and are much faster than older SATA SSDs, with Gen3 around 3,500 megabytes per second rising to multiple gigabytes per second on Gen4 and Gen5. NVMe (M.2 stick) Plugs into PCIe bus Fast: 3,500 MB/s and up SATA SSD (older) Uses SATA cable Slower: about 550 MB/s Top speed by PCIe generation Gen3 Gen4 Gen5 ~3,500 MB/s ~7,000 MB/s ~14,000 MB/s

A protocol for solid-state drives that communicate over the fast PCIe bus, typically on an M.2 stick, giving much higher sequential speeds than older SATA SSDs. The 'Gen3 / Gen4 / Gen5' label refers to the PCIe generation and roughly tracks the drive's top speed, which has climbed from around 3,500 MB/s on Gen3 to multiple gigabytes per second on Gen4 and Gen5.

Concrete example

an NVMe drive can copy large files far quicker than a SATA SSD, though for everyday app loading the difference between PCIe generations is far smaller.

What it means when you're buying

NVMe is the sensible default for a boot drive, but for most users a good Gen3 or Gen4 drive is plenty — paying up for Gen5 mainly benefits sustained large-file workloads and may need extra cooling.

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