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Writing 500 GB to a SATA SSD takes 15m 9s

Writing 500 GB to a SATA SSD at the 550 MB/s (4.4 Gbps) ceiling works out to 15 minutes 9 seconds. That's the realistic figure for cloning an OS drive to a new SSD, or for restoring a large backup — SATA III's 6 Gbps raw protocol overhead lands on 4.4 Gbps effective after 8b/10b encoding.

Transfer time
15m 9s
At peak link speed
File size
500 GB
500 GB
Link speed
4,400 Mbps
SATA SSD (~550 MB/s)

Calculator

Data Transfer Calculator

Configuration

Mbps
Estimated Transfer Time
15m 9s

Speed Comparison

USB 2.0
2h 18m 53s
480 Mbps
USB 4 / Thunderbolt 4
1m 40s
40 Gbps
Gigabit Ethernet
1h 6m 40s
1 Gbps
10 Gigabit Ethernet
6m 40s
10 Gbps
WiFi 5 (ac)
2h 46m 40s
400 Mbps
WiFi 7 (be)
13m 20s
5 Gbps
SATA SSD
15m 9s
4.4 Gbps
Selected
NVMe Gen4 SSD
1m 11s
56 Gbps

How this is calculated

SATA SSDs sustain their 550 MB/s rate indefinitely, unlike NVMe drives whose SLC cache can bottleneck long writes. That predictability is SATA's remaining advantage in 2026 — for a drive that just has to be "fast enough and reliable", SATA's sustained write is more consistent than a consumer NVMe drive during the slow-tier portion of a long transfer. SATA is still the right answer for bulk storage on budget machines and for older systems without M.2 slots.

Verdict

15 minutes for 500 GB is the SATA SSD benchmark for OS cloning and backups. It's 4–5× slower than NVMe but 3–4× faster than a 7200 RPM hard drive — good enough for most workflows that don't revolve around storage throughput.

More Storage scenarios

100 GB to NVMe Gen4 SSD
PCIe 4.0 NVMe (~7 GB/s)
View details ➜

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to transfer 1 TB over Gigabit Ethernet?
At a theoretical 1000 Mbps (125 MB/s), 1 TB takes about 2 hours and 13 minutes in ideal conditions. Real-world speeds over Gigabit Ethernet typically top out around 110-115 MB/s due to TCP overhead, so budget closer to 2.5 hours for a full 1 TB copy.
Why is my real transfer speed slower than the cable's rated speed?
Rated speeds are raw signalling rates in bits per second. Protocol overhead (TCP/IP, USB framing, filesystem operations), encryption, small-file latency, and the slowest device in the chain (often the disk, not the cable) all reduce usable throughput. A USB 3.0 port rated 5 Gbps usually delivers around 400 MB/s in practice, not the theoretical 625 MB/s.
What's the difference between megabits (Mbps) and megabytes (MB/s)?
There are 8 bits in a byte, so 1000 Mbps equals 125 MB/s. Network speeds and ISP plans are advertised in megabits per second, while file sizes and storage speeds are measured in megabytes per second. Dividing Mbps by 8 gives you the MB/s figure you actually see when copying files.
How fast is WiFi 6 compared to Gigabit Ethernet for file transfers?
WiFi 6 can exceed Gigabit Ethernet on paper (up to ~9.6 Gbps theoretical) but real-world throughput usually lands between 500 Mbps and 1.5 Gbps depending on distance, interference, and client hardware. For a single large file transfer, wired Gigabit is still more consistent; WiFi 6E or WiFi 7 can edge ahead in ideal conditions.
Is USB 4 or Thunderbolt 4 faster for copying files?
Both use the same 40 Gbps underlying spec and deliver comparable real-world speeds of around 2800-3200 MB/s for sustained transfers. Thunderbolt 4 guarantees the full 40 Gbps and PCIe 32 Gbps tunnel; USB 4 allows 20 Gbps implementations, so check the port's actual spec rather than assuming parity.
Does file size affect transfer speed?
Yes — significantly. Transferring one 50 GB file hits near-maximum throughput, but copying 50 GB of small files (thousands of photos, say) can be 5-10x slower because every file has filesystem and metadata overhead. For large migrations, compressing into an archive first is often faster end to end.

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