How FAST is your storage? SSD speed, M.2 performance and more

We all use data storage every day. Inside our desktops (M.2), laptops (SSD), smartphones (UFS 3.0), cameras (SD and microSD), etc. But there are so many different types of storage and interfaces. What are the real world speeds of these devices? Does the interface matter? Let's find out!

#garyexplains

[PaulieK]

I got a Lenovo gaming laptop without an SSD 3 years ago after coming from an old iMac thinking it wasn't necessary. After a year of slow boot times I decided to get a Samsung M.2 Evo SSD. It was like I got a new computer. Everything boots and loads in a fraction of the time. I'll never cheap out on ssd storage again. Great video!

[nimrodlevy]

This is an Amazing explaination! Thank you very very much!

[SuhasCholleti]

amazing video as always but could you make the font size little more smartphone friendly.

[marauderinchief]

Hey Gary, a video on the comparative real world differences between the storage memory used in iPhones vs Android phones would be instructive

[projectz]

God bless SSD... It made so many old laptops revive recently.... Many people changed their HDD to SSD.

[XSpImmaLion]

Holy crap thanks for simplifying and making it easy to compare and understand this type of information Gary... always a struggle to reference and explain this as well as consult when needed.

[AkashYadav-mrhg]

Great Video Sir ! That was very informative even though i have been studying about various intefaces etc still i found it very informative and you deserve more subscribers. Keep up the good work. :)

[alanbrownjohn]

Thanks man, been wanting to know differences between these.

[kevinknight]

Top notch well explained good edited video

[crouchingtigerhiddenadam]

Excellent video. The M.2 result was suprising.

[anmolsharma]

Was always looking for such a comparison.
Nice video.👍👍

[theJesai]

*Amazing videos Gary!* *Keep up the good work!* 🙂

_Like to show your love_ 🏆

[someguy]

Zero of the reviewers on YouTube mentioned the Pixel 3a only have USB 2.0.

[gregzeng]

Thank you Gary for the brief report. Getting your raw data is a tedious yet expert task. This reminds me of the difficulties of bench testing.
1) In the real world, a chain is only as strong, or as fast, as its weakest, slowest link.
2) HDD's depend very much on how full the drive is, and how fragmented to clusters are. This does not matter for electronic storage in SSD & flash drives.
3) Except for flash-cards & USB sticks, my SSD & HDD have partitions in Microsoft NTFS-compressed format. So it matters very much that the data is compressible or not. Microsoft claims that compressing & decompressing of the data has negligible effects on timings.
With HDD, the compressed data uses less disk space, & fewer clusters, so is read-written faster. I've yet to test whether this difference in speeds is measurable. On the SSD there should be no difference.
4) The other variable is the quality of the connecting cables. If the cable is too long, or too low in quality for any number of reasons, the number of re-runs of the packets of data is increased, slowing everything. If this is significant enough to be measurable is uncertain.
5) Finally, in all computer connections, caches are common. Generally the testers report how they removed any possibility of these caches distorting the results.

[sudipchatterjee]

Very diligent and edifying! Thank you, Gary! It couldn't have been any simpler or enjoyable than this! Amazing work!
I have another thing to ask you. Is there any difference between sd cards made for cameras and ordinary sd cards. I've just added a mirrorless camera to my camera repertoire which includes a DSLR and a compact point-and-shoot. While I was purchasing sd cards for them, I noticed for the first time that there are many sd cards out there which are made specifically for cameras. Are they worth it as they say? Or just gimcrackery? Please share your thoughts.

[OscarRobbing]

It also needs to be pointed out that for the SSD's especially, brand and model is incredibly important as SSD design varies significantly.
ie. Your M.2 SSD 'only' got 2.5GB/s seq. read when the likes of the Samsung 970 Evo Plus can get 3.5GB/s and will perform very differently in other scenarios ie. 50/50 and such (not necessarily better; I have no idea, but differently)

[aqeelmohamed]

He is the master in this segment.. great explanation

[yediydeyah]

I can watch these types of videos all day!

[GaneshMKarhale]

Will there be a difference in speed between a zip format file and a mkv format file while copying, taken both are of say 500 Mb?

[MarkKeller]

*GARY!!!*
*Bonjour Professeur!*
*Bonjour Camarades De Classe!*