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I have a Samsung SSD being used as a boot drive through a SATA connection. I've been using it for about 8 years. It barely gets over 200 MB/s maximum in read or write performance. It's been used daily for pretty much all those years. I'm starting to fear that failure may be on the horizon as it significantly underperforms at times. Anyways, I'm looking for an upgrade that meets these requirements:

  • Preferrably $100 USD or Less ($150 Max, but less is better)
  • At least 64 gigabytes (the one I'm using now is 64GB)
  • 1 Priority, Quick Boot (I have a drive just for programs and keep files on a raid array)
  • Purchasable through Amazon.com

I'm considering connecting the drive through SATA III or PCIE. What should I go with? Are there more factors to consider when selecting a fast boot ssd?

In terms of drives, I'm looking at either the

Samsung 850 Evo Pro 128GB Read: 550 MB/s Max, Write: 470 MB/s Max

or

Kingston HyperX Predator 240GB PCIe Read: 1400 MB/s, Write: 600 MB/s

But I'm certainly open to suggestions. Thanks!

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There is no such thing as "850 Evo Pro" it's either EVO or PRO. IN any case go for the Pro versions. I have lots of SSDs here, among them also the 850 Pro and the Kingston HyperX Predator 240GB PCIe.

If you do have a M.2 NVMe capable slot, then there's no question: go for that. SATA is really not suitable for modern SSDs anymore(the numbers you see with the 850 Pro are SATA maxed out).

So in terms of speed and shorter boot times, The Kingston is definitely it.

Nowadays there are some even better M.2 NVMe SSDs and you may want to consider if these are or are not within your budget. The performance hierarchy is

Samsung 850 Pro < Kingston HyerX < Samsung 950 Pro < Samsung 960 Pro

I have the Samsung 950 Pro in my notebook and it gives around 2.5 GB/s read and 1.1 GB/s write. As this is what Samsung announces, I tend to believe that the 960 Pro will deliver the 3.5GB/s read and 2.1 GB/s write although I haven't tested it personally yet.

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  • SATA III has max throughput 6 Gb/s, so it should handle 550 MB/s, shouldn't it? Theoretically, it should be able to transfer about 750 MB/s.
    – David Ferenczy Rogožan
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 14:16
  • SATAIII Can handle 550MB/s - which is what you see in the question above mentioned for the Samsung 850 Pro. That is actually the upper limit for SATA. No way it could handle 750MB/s.
    – Perlator
    Commented Mar 28, 2019 at 11:56

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