The move from using the PCIe 3.0 standard to the PCIe 4.0 standard for SSDs happened in 2019, with another jump from PCIe 4.0 to PCIe 5.0 in 2021. PCI Express, as it is otherwise known, is a primary way of connecting high-performance PC components (like internal SSDs and graphics cards), and it’s steadily being updated to deliver faster speeds and more bandwidth.