I just thought I'd interject more information regarding the current kinds of SSD drives (ctsy of AI)--here are the key differences between SATA 2, SATA 3, and NVMe SSD drives:
SATA 2 and SATA 3
SATA (Serial ATA) technology was introduced as an improvement to the existing Parallel ATA technology, which was hampered by cable size, cost, performance, and functionality [2].
SATA drives are the larger, 2.5-inch drives that most resemble classic laptop hard drives [4].
SATA SSDs use the AHCI system which is made for slower hard drives [3]. Using AHCI on SSDs do not let them run as fast as they could [3].
SATA 3 SSDs have a theoretical maximum speed of 600MB/s, but the actual speed is often slower due to various limitations [5].
NVMe
NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) technology was introduced to address the various bottlenecks of the SATA interface and communication protocols [2].
NVMe SSDs use the PCIe bus in computers [3], instead of the SATA bus, to unlock enormous bandwidth potential for storage devices [2].
NVMe drives are faster than SATA drives [1]. Transfer rates depend first on which generation of PCIe connector your NVMe drive uses, and then the individual model [1].
Currently, the maximum speed for an NVMe PCIe 3.0 (aka Gen 3) SSD is up to 3,500MB per second, while a NVMe PCIe 4.0 (aka Gen 4) SSD can hit up to 7,500MB per second [1].