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What is NVMe?

The realm of storage technology has evolved over time, with NVMe being the latest leap. Unlike other solutions, NVMe SSDs promise an exponential increase in bandwidth in storage solutions. This makes them a must-have storage technology for anyone shopping for new PCs. You should also consider upgrading your vintage PC to NVMe.

Below are a few things you should know about NVMe.

What is NVMe?

NVMe, or Non-Volatile Memory Express, is a recent storage transport and access protocol for future solid-state drives (SSDs). NVMe delivers high throughput and fast response times for all enterprise workloads. These are perfect for modern consumer apps and businesses where users expect swift response times, as applications become increasingly complicated and resource-dependent.

To deliver high bandwidth and low-latency experience, NVMe protocols use PCI Express (PCIe) bus to access flash storage. PCIe supports thousands of parallel commands, making it faster than traditional all-flash systems and hard disks, which were limited to single command queues.

NVMe was specifically designed for SSDs by various vendors, including Dell, Seagate, Samsung, and SanDisk, to eliminate storage bottlenecks. The main reason behind modern PCs and fast performance compared to traditional CPUs and GPUs is SSDs and quantum leap storage performance.

For instance, if you recently bought or used a MacBook Pro, you will notice that the system immediately completes mundane operations. All computer programs open, files save and load, and the machine boots and shuts almost instantly. This is because NVMe SSDs inside these MacBooks read and write data four times faster than SATA SSDs used in previous generations. NVMe SSDs also locate data 10 times faster.

What Are NVMe Over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)?

While NVMe is fast flash storage and end-to-end solution that facilitates efficient data transport between servers and storage systems, NVMe-oF extends its performance and latency across various network fabrics. NVMe-oF has three transmission types, which include:

● Fiber channel – using NVMe on fiber channel or NVMe over FC is a robust data transfer protocol between servers and storage systems. SCSI commands in FC-NVMe are encapsulated in FC frames and widely used by SAN storage.

● TCP – is the latest NVMe-oF development that combines NVMe and Transmission Control Protocol for data transmission on IP/Ethernet networks. This offers an affordable and flexible transmission option compared to FC- NVMe, and RDMA.

● RDMA – these specifications combine NVMe and remote direct memory access protocol to transmit information across networks between storage devices and computers. RDAM facilitates the exchange of information between the main memories of two PCs in a network. This option doesn’t involve computer processors, operating systems, or
cache, making it a low-cost and fast network data transfer mechanism.

Not All NVMe Are Created Equal

Most people presume that all NVMe SSDs perform equally. However, while NVMe should make your systems fast, not all are the same. For instance, the Samsung 970 Pro reads and writes at 3GBps and 2.5GBps, while Toshiba RC100 reads and writes at 1.2GBps and 900MBps, respectively.

Factors that affect the performance of NVMe solutions include the controller, number of PCIe lanes, type of NAND, and amount of NAND available. Generally:

  • X4 PCIe NVMe is faster than x2PCIe
  • NVMe SSDs with more NAND chips have more paths and destinations in the controller for data storage and distribution. Small capacity solutions (128 and 256GBs) are slower than large capacity options.
  • NAND type used also matters. Single Level Cell is the fastest, followed by Multi-Level Cell and Third-Level Cell, while Quad-Level Cell is the slowest.

You should consider several factors when deciding the best NVMe to buy. As a rule of thumb, consider buying double the capacity required for future scalability.

The Bottom Line

There’s certainly a lot to learn about NVMe and modern storage and data transfer solutions. Nonetheless, they are the perfect storage solution for your next PC. While you can use them on personal computers to improve games and video editing capabilities, they are an excellent enterprise solution when time matters. The faster data is accessed and processed, the more business value.