[SOLVED] Seeking advice on selecting drive - usb type-c vs SATA3 SSD

satimis_06

Distinguished
Jan 2, 2006
159
8
18,585
Hi all,

Please advise which drive has better performance.

USB type-c pen drive
vs
SATA3 SSD

USB type-c pen drive is quite convenient in changing drive. But SATA3 6G/s SSD needs to open the PC case.

Please advice. Thanks

Regards
Stephen
 
Solution
Hello.

Usually, the SATA3 drive is a lot faster than a USB drive, even if it's 3.1.
But it also depends on the ones you may have already picked. So do you have any drives in mind already?

If no, my suggestion is to get a SATA3 SSD, as you can get some decently fast high quality 500GB drives for 50-80$.

If you do have any in mind, could you tell us which ones?

Also, can you post your entire system specifications?
You might even be able to get an M.2 NVMe SSD, which at this point cost pretty much the same as SATA3 SSDs (the PCIe Gen3 ones), but are exponentially faster than SATA3 SSDs.

Summary:
I would choose which drive like this (3rd is the last option, only if needed).

  1. An M.2 NVMe SSD drive. If your PC supports it, I'd go...
Jan 13, 2022
13
5
15
Hello.

Usually, the SATA3 drive is a lot faster than a USB drive, even if it's 3.1.
But it also depends on the ones you may have already picked. So do you have any drives in mind already?

If no, my suggestion is to get a SATA3 SSD, as you can get some decently fast high quality 500GB drives for 50-80$.

If you do have any in mind, could you tell us which ones?

Also, can you post your entire system specifications?
You might even be able to get an M.2 NVMe SSD, which at this point cost pretty much the same as SATA3 SSDs (the PCIe Gen3 ones), but are exponentially faster than SATA3 SSDs.

Summary:
I would choose which drive like this (3rd is the last option, only if needed).

  1. An M.2 NVMe SSD drive. If your PC supports it, I'd go for it first.
  2. A SATA6 SSD. I would choose this if your PC doesn't support NVMe.
  3. I would only choose the USB drive if you have a low budget (though you can get nice NVMe drives these days for 70$).
 
Solution

satimis_06

Distinguished
Jan 2, 2006
159
8
18,585
Hello.

Usually, the SATA3 drive is a lot faster than a USB drive, even if it's 3.1.
But it also depends on the ones you may have already picked. So do you have any drives in mind already?

If no, my suggestion is to get a SATA3 SSD, as you can get some decently fast high quality 500GB drives for 50-80$.

If you do have any in mind, could you tell us which ones?

Also, can you post your entire system specifications?
You might even be able to get an M.2 NVMe SSD, which at this point cost pretty much the same as SATA3 SSDs (the PCIe Gen3 ones), but are exponentially faster than SATA3 SSDs.

Summary:
I would choose which drive like this (3rd is the last option, only if needed).

  1. An M.2 NVMe SSD drive. If your PC supports it, I'd go for it first.
  2. A SATA6 SSD. I would choose this if your PC doesn't support NVMe.
  3. I would only choose the USB drive if you have a low budget (though you can get nice NVMe drives these days for 70$).
Thanks for your detail advice.

My idea is sharing HDD between PCs. OS installed on USB type-c pen drive can be booted.

But in another thought my PCs have different hardware configuration. Sharing HDD btw PCs seems not working for me.

I'm now running NVMe SSD Gen3.0 sometimes and will go NVMe SSD Gen4.0 in my new PC which I'm planning to build and collecting tech info now.

Thanks

Regards