SATA
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SATA is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA
A 3.5-inch Serial ATA hard disk drive
A 2.5-inch Serial ATA solid-state drive
SATA 6 Gbit/s host controller, a PCI Express ×1 card with Marvell chipset
SATA 2 connectors on a computer motherboard, all but two with cables plugged in. Note that there is no visible difference, other than the labeling, between SATA 1, SATA 2, and SATA 3 cables and connectors.
PCI Express
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PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed standard used to connect hardware components inside computers. It is designed to replace older expansion bus standards such as PCI, PCI-X a
A PCIe 3.0 ×8 host bus adapter
Various slots on a computer motherboard, from top to bottom: PCI Express ×4 PCI Express ×16 PCI Express ×1 PCI Express ×16 Conventional PCI (32-bit, 5 V)
PCI Express ×1 card containing a PCI Express switch (covered by a small heat sink), which creates multiple endpoints out of one endpoint and lets multiple devices share it
The PCIe slots on a motherboard are often labeled with the number of PCIe lanes they have. Sometimes what may seem like a large slot may only have a few lanes. For instance, a ×16 slot with only 4 PCIe lanes (bottom slot) is quite common.