Learn more about how to choose the right SSD drive

At present, there are two commonly used protocols for SSDs: SATA3 and NVME, and on the basis of these two protocol channels, four types of interfaces have been expanded: SATA3, M-SATA, and PCIe.

SATA 3 interface.

In addition to being a protocol, SATA3 also represents an interface type, and its transmission read speed is theoretically up to 6Gbps, and on the basis of this bus protocol, it also extends to M-SATA and two interface types.

Among them is another common interface type, most NVME hard disks use interface design, SATA protocol and NVME protocol are different in design, at present, most of the interfaces can be compatible with two different protocol hard disks, but there are also special circumstances, before buying, be sure to confirm what kind of hard disk your motherboard supports.

NVME is currently the fastest type of hard disk, it uses PCIe channel transmission speed in the computer, the theoretical maximum speed is 32Gbps, and the actual maximum speed is generally more than twice that of SATA protocol hard disk, at present, there are only two forms of interface and conventional PCIe interface, which is very easy to distinguish.

Radish represents a type of plant, and under the category of radish (SSD), there are two categories with completely different flavors, white radish (SATA3 protocol) and carrot (NVMe protocol).

The white radish (sata) is divided into long radish (sata3 interface) and round radish (interface), which are all radishes, but the taste and form are completely different. The corresponding SSDs also have different protocols, interface types, and speeds.

The first thing that needs to be considered when upgrading or installing is the compatibility of the motherboard, and the interface is recommended first, which has the advantages of easy installation and simple cable management compared to the SATA3 interface, and the speed of the two is basically the same;

If you're looking for faster speeds, an interface that supports the NVMe protocol is certainly preferred, but it can be more expensive and is suitable for users who often transfer large amounts of data within the machine (e.g. 4K clips).

Since there are fewer and fewer motherboards that support the M-SATA interface, the number of hard disks** with this type of interface has remained high and is not recommended to buy.

SSDs don't need to be specially driven!

Installation of SSDs.

1 SSD 4k aligned.

You can use the Win7 system disk to partition and format the SSD, or use the hard disk partitioning tool DiskGen software (at least the version or above) to align the SSD in 4K.

2. Enable the AHCI function on the hard disk.

At present, most desktop computers are in IDE mode by default, and to enable the HDD AHCI mode, you need to enter the BIOS to set it on. Most notebooks have adopted AHCI mode by default.

The general steps to enter the BIOS to turn on the hard disk AHCI mode are: restart the computer, press the DEL key to enter the BIOS when starting the computer, select Devices ATA Drives Setup Configure SATA as AHCI, and finally press the F10 key to save and exit the BIOS

In addition to the above two basic and important knowledge points, there are some other aspects that have a greater impact on the performance of the SSD, such as the motherboard turning on the energy-saving function and the misconnection of the third-party SATA3 interface, etc., which will have a greater impact on the speed of the SSD, which are introduced below.

1) The performance of the SSD is degraded due to the energy-saving mode enabled on the motherboard.

Usually, the motherboard's energy-saving function is enabled, and the CPU frequency will be reduced, which will also lead to a decrease in the performance of the SSD, because the CPU frequency will be reduced by 10% when saving energy, and it will be 10% slower when sending instructions, so the theoretical SSD performance will be reduced by 10% during the test, so if you want to give full play to the best performance of the SSD, please do not turn on the energy-saving mode on the motherboard.

2) Misconnection to the third-party SATA3 interface affects performance.

Nowadays, many mainstream motherboards support interfaces, such as Intel's B75 motherboards and AMD's A75 motherboards have interfaces, which are also very important for SSDs, if the motherboards we choose do not support interfaces (such as H61 or A55 motherboards do not contain interfaces), then the performance of SSDs will be greatly affected. On the other hand, the test results of the third-party SATA3 interface solution are almost completely inferior to the results of the native SATA3, especially in the starting applications speed is 20MB S. （starting applications：

Open the PCMark 7 Specification Document with IE and wait for a fully responsive hard disk operation record. 85% of them are random reads. As a result, the score dropped dramatically, and the use of a third-party SATA3 chip solution greatly slowed down the random speed, resulting in a sharp drop in performance.