Why do you suppose I recommended my client purchase a computer with a lowly i3 processor when I have an i7?  This client uses word-processing, calendaring, case management software, email and general Internet.  With those activities he will never experience a bottle neck by having an i3 processor.  His laptop will run cooler, quieter and get better battery life due to the lower power requirements of a lesser CPU and save some money on the purchase.

(Note: This article is a spin off from the article titled “Internet Speed Surprise” and refers to the same computers from that article)

…speed of loading programs…

Let’s consider some other reasons for selecting this Dell laptop.  My client wants convenient ability to access DVD’s so there is an internal DVD drive.  DVD drives are becoming rarer on laptops which reduces the field of choices.  The speed of loading programs and files is more beneficial than the processing speed of the CPU, so the speed of the storage device is important.

No hard disk drive

This Dell does not have an HDD (hard disk drive).  It does not have an SSD (solid state drive).  So how does it work?  Some of you know the answer, it has a M.2 drive.  If you don’t know, we pronounce that as the letter ‘M’, the word “dot” and the numeral 2 like this, “M dot 2 drive”.  In recent years the term SSD has usually referred to a SATA SSD and we just did not pronounce the term SATA because there was no affordable alternative.  The not so affordable alternative was M.2 SSD.  So, they are both SSD’s which makes the second sentence of this paragraph a little sketchy, let it go.  No surprise M.2 SSD’s are becoming more affordable.  This M.2 is essentially a special kind of memory board usually plugged into a socket on the motherboard.  Physically it looks more like ram memory than a hard disk drive.  It is functionally very similar to a SATA SSD, but it does not attach with a SATA cable as a SATA SSD would.  Because it is not limited to connecting to the SATA port it is not limited to the speed capabilities of SATA.

New tech mixed with old?

As a side note, because the Dell has the newer technology M.2 SSD drive I was especially surprised to find it did not have a gigabit Ethernet port (see the prior article) but only the much older technology 100 Mb Ethernet port.  So now, let’s consider the benefit of M.2.

How much faster?

My HP has a Samsung EVO 1TB SATA SSD.  This is a very good SSD.  CrystalDiskMark shows my 1TB SSD (One Tera-Byte Solid State Drive) to read at 561 MB/s and write at 529.8 MB/s.  The Dell 225GB M.2 drive shows read speeds at 3185.2 MB/s and write speeds at 823.4 MB/s.  A SATA HDD (SATA hard disk drive) which has physical disk platters that spin and a mechanical arm that moves back and forth across the platters works around 100-130 MB/s.  I need to do some explaining here and point out the significance.

Six times faster

Pat yourself on the back if you noticed the M.2 SSD reads about 6 times faster than my SATA SSD and about 25 times faster than an HDD. 

MB/s vs Mbps

Notice the notation here using ‘MB/s’ where in the prior article about network adapters we were using ‘Mbps’.  The only difference we care about is that a capital ‘B’ refers to bytes and a lowercase ‘b’ refers to bits.  For the purposes of this article I’ll just explain that it takes 8 bits to make one byte.  The highest speed we saw on Internet downloads in the network speed post was 322 Mbps.  Translated into bytes that would be 40.25 MB/s.  The fastest Internet speed is slower than the slowest drive speed.  You can see that drive speeds are much faster than Internet speeds.

M.2 is more expensive

M.2 SSD drives are currently more expensive than SATA SSD which explains the lower capacity.  This is okay for my client because he stores data files on a file server.  High capacity M.2 SSD drives are available they are just substantially more expensive so not purchased at this time unless really needed.

Perception of speed

The fast speeds of the M.2 mean that the time for loading programs and swapping between multiple programs that are open at the same time and utilizing virtual memory will be faster.  My client’s perception of speed should be very high even though the processor and Ethernet connection are not very high. 

Cost difference

Storage devices vary in price with the brand, model, capacity so its not like comparing the price of a hamburger from McDonalds or Burger King but this chart will give you a sketchy idea of the differences in cost for 1 TB (one terabyte) drives.

1 TB Hard Disk Drive	$45
1 TB SATA SSD	$100
1 TB M.2 SSD	$140

This is now that was then

The prices shown above are ballpark prices from Amazon as seen on January 26, 2020. The Dell laptop I have been discussing was purchased as a refurbished computer so the M.2 drive in it was selected when that computer was new at a time when the value of a 1TB M.2 drive may have been $400 or $500 and therefore is was equipped with a more affordable 225 GB M.2 drive.

But wait, there’s more

The next topic you need to learn about in the M.2 world is the difference between M.2 NAND and M.2 NVMe. That will be a separate article because I’m tired of typing right now.

Conclusion

Because of the drastic price drops in SATA SSD and M.2 SSD a frequent task for computer technicians these days is to upgrade a computer from the old style slow (by today’s standards) mechanical hard drives to SSD drives. The labor charge and cost of the SSD can be very affordable compared to buying a new computer and it can easily make your computer feel like a screaming speed demon.

Assistance

The plan with LiveWindowsTraining is to provide a means to help individuals and small businesses perform services on their own computers. If you want help with upgrading to an SSD or other assistance with your computer then you should check out the Information tab on this website, www.LiveWindowsTraining.com.