A 14-Year-Old PC Standard is Becoming Definitively Obsolete.

The storage industry is undergoing a remarkable transformation, marked by the gradual phasing out of PCIe Gen 3 M.2 SSDs, as manufacturers are moving towards more advanced and faster standards like PCIe Gen 4 and Gen 5. According to recent reports, SSD producers have begun to cease the manufacturing of these older models, which is a response to the increasing availability and acceptance of PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, which offer nearly double the bandwidth compared to the previous generation.

Technology giants like Intel and AMD have adapted their new platforms to incorporate PCIe Gen 4, further facilitating this transition. An example of this is Intel's recent release of the Core Ultra 200S, which, along with the Z890 chipset, supports PCIe lanes starting at PCIe 4.0. While PCIe Gen 3 SSDs, which have been available since the early 2010s, are losing relevance, especially in larger capacities. Although lower capacity models remain on the market, high-capacity drives are being predominantly replaced by PCIe Gen 4 variants.

Furthermore, PCIe Gen 5 SSDs are beginning to emerge, offering superior performance, especially in tasks that demand high read and write speeds, such as gaming and video editing. This trend is not limited to the consumer sector, as even enterprise markets are shifting from Gen 3 to PCIe Gen 5 and even Gen 6 SSDs, in response to the need for higher performance in servers and data centers.

The limitations of PCIe Gen 3 are becoming evident, especially in more demanding applications, which has led manufacturers to halt research and development of Gen 3 models. In the coming years, the market for PCIe Gen 4 is expected to dominate, while PCIe Gen 5 will solidify its position as a common standard. As these new standards are fully integrated, consumers will enjoy faster and more efficient storage solutions tailored to the increasing demands of modern computing.