NVMe hard disk, the boost to your SSD for even better performance
There's a lot of talk about NVMe hard drives, but what does this technology consist of? What advantages can it give to your PC? What is the difference compared to the already high-performance SSD system?
NVMe hard drive. What is it about?
Although NVMe is often equated and placed in the same category as hard disks, this technology is not strictly a hard disk , mechanical or solid state. NVMe is in fact a new transmission protocol that promises to increase transmission speed by removing a "bottleneck", that of transfer. To better understand what NVMe is, let's start with hard drives.
Hard disk and performance
The history of hard disks is divided into two sequential steps which have determined their evolution. The transition from mechanical hard disks to SSDs (solid state drives) has in fact led to an improvement in the capacity of the disks and the speed of access to them.
Today the SSD disk is now the protagonist of the vast majority of computers, in many cases as the only disk, in some cases as the main disk , relegating the mechanical disk as a secondary unit for data storage.
The solid state drive is in fact very fast and very reliable, given that it has no moving parts. But this technology can also be improved.
The upgrade in this case does not come from a new generation of faster disks, but from a new transfer protocol that aims to remove the "bottleneck" given by the existing transmission protocol.
Transmission speed
SSD disks have a theoretical transmission speed of more than 500 MB/S. A super speed, which is limited and slowed down by transmission protocols.
This is why the SATA ( Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) protocol, an evolution of the previous PATA version (also known as ATA or IDE) is no longer sufficient for these high-performance disks.
Even its evolution, the SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) protocol, is not doing any better. In fact, we are talking about a protocol that technically would have no problems supporting the maximum speed of SSDs, but which is held back by its very limited diffusion and high implementation cost.
This is the reason for the success of the NVMe protocol . Acronym for Non-Volatile Memory Express, NVMe is a communication interface that appeared on the market for the first time in 2013. An interface strongly supported by SSD disk manufacturers, it was born from a consortium created ad hoc, which includes Intel, Samsung , Seagate and Dell.
NVME SSD hard disks are destined to become the new standard, thanks to very low input/output latency times. In fact, to date, this technology guarantees a response speed of a maximum of a few hundred milliseconds.
This increase in transmission speed is possible because this protocol skips many steps. The NVMe standard in fact communicates directly with the system CPU , reducing the steps required for I/O and consequently increasing the transmission speed.
NVMe compatibility
Speed and very short response time are not the only features of this solution. The NVMe protocol is in fact compatible with all standard operating systems, from the commercial Macintosh and Windows, up to the less widespread Linux. In fact, for about ten years, operating systems have preventively included this possibility, which is at its best on machines equipped with latest generation interfaces.
In particular, if you decide to opt for NVMe, you will need to check that the motherboard and system bios are compatible with this standard.
The Bios (now also known by the new name UEFI) is crucial, we will in fact have to verify that it can activate the UEFI 2.3.1 functionality if we really want to be able to use NVMe.
Why switch to NVMe?
NVMe SSDs are faster than SATA and SAS , so much so that they allow the computer to start up much faster and are on average more reliable when you have to store or open very large files.
Some numbers
Statistics and comparisons demonstrate the reason why many users, especially of high-performance PCs in the graphics, video editing or gaming sectors, are switching to NVMe. SSDs of this type are in fact considerably faster than traditional ones. The premium features of this product make it faster than "traditional" standards both during the startup phase and during the work process, with evident differences in terms of loading times and playability of even very heavy titles and applications.
Which storage solution to choose? 
As already indicated, we can consider a threefold proposal from manufacturers when considering hard drives. The classic mechanical hard disk (HD), the solid state disk (SSD) and the SSD equipped with this new protocol (NVMe).
As already mentioned we can immediately exclude the mechanical hard disk from the competition. This type of configuration remains interesting only from the point of view of the “price per Gigabyte” aspect. This makes HDDs convenient only when this disk is used as a storage system.
In fact, SSDs have very quickly replaced HDDs . Faster and much more resistant thanks to the absence of moving parts, solid state disks are a practically obligatory choice for the main disks of every "performance" computer.
For those who want to take a further step further, the NVMe protocol is a further performance booster , for a difference in terms of time and execution speed that is immediately perceptible when performing heavy operations in terms of memory use.
To conclude
A protocol pushed by the SSD manufacturers themselves, the NVMe transmission system is much more than an alternative to the standard protocol. If we can consider the transition from HDD to SSD like the automotive one from a station wagon to a custom-built car, at the same time we can evaluate the introduction of NVMe as the replacement of the highway that serves as a reference for the car with a track specially designed in where you can unload all the power of your vehicle in complete safety.
To date, NVMe hard disk technology is a standard for the majority of manufacturers. In fact, we find this technology implemented by practically everyone, from Samsung to Corsair, from Adata to Western Digital.
The future has arrived with SSDs, now it's time to make the most of them to get the best possible performance.
