John Doe wrote:
There is a new type of connector on my motherboard that
apparently can facilitate extremely fast storage drives. They
look cheap and apparently faster than SSD, I might try one
soon. Intel has a 128 GB version for about $65...

Intel 128GB M.2 80mm SSD (SSDPEKKW128G7X1)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...TVPDKIKX 0DER

It's a 600 series, and slightly faster than an SSD.
Part of the performance is related to capacity (number
of flash chips, number of lanes working in parallel),
so the larger capacity ones might work slightly better.

https://ark.intel.com/products/94917...3_0-x4-3D1-TLC

You'd want to find a review of the 600 series, to understand
what you're buying. And if you think about it, the "family"
information (600p) was missing, to make it harder for a customer
to run into the reviews on their own.

A good one, with X4 lanes, should do around 2GB/sec reads. This
site has reviews, and some of the summary charts will allow
a quick comparison.

http://www.thessdreview.com/featured...t-efficient/2/

Chart - Includes a reference to an Intel 600p 512GB (the 128GB
should be slower).

http://www.thessdreview.com/featured...t-efficient/4/

When a test attempts to determine an "average" performance
figure, that takes into account some amount of small file
activity. These drives *hate* 4KB write tests, and small
files really slow then down. You get to see the fancy
performance, in HDTune or similar.

The first SSD I bought, was bad enough I returned it. I
couldn't figure out what it was up to (rated 500MB/sec write,
was doing around 130MB/sec in a sustained write test). The second
SSD I bought, I've been avoiding too much "careful scrutiny"
so I won't have buyers remorse :-)

The advantage of a regular SATA SSD, is a high degree of portability.
It can be shoved anywhere an SSD hard drive would go. Even if it
isn't a speed demon.

Paul