The SATA Express connector is a hybrid connection, which combines the SATA standard with the possibility of plugging directly into the motherboard through PCIe ports. The exciting thing about this approach is that if a SATAe slot is not in use on the motherboard, it can connect up to two devices via "normal" SATA, thus achieve better performance—something similar to RAID. This technique makes the system faster and more secure. Theoretically, SATA Express can achieve data transfer rates of up to 16 Gb/s.