I’m here to let folks know that if your not too sure if you want to install a SSD on what you are missing out on.
Just this past Monday I installed a 1 TB Crucial MX500 inside my Alienware R8. Let me tell you, its like hitting a switch on how much faster it is compared to my 1 TB HDD w/ Optane Boost.
Boot times went from a little over a minute with my HDD, to 24 seconds with the SSD. The biggest part for me was the loading screens in WOW. Loading screen takes about 5-10 seconds, and once my toon appears everything is loaded and don’t have to wait on anything.
I’m just making this post for the folks who really haven’t made up their minds if they want to get a SSD or not.
Well, I have Linux on my HDD, which in itself is fast. I only use Windows for COD, and WOW.
I can relate to the work PC. Mine is still on Windows 7 lol. And takes forevvvvver to boot up.
I remember back when SSDs weren’t quite mainstream in systems yet, I had my initial concerns that kept me on the fence about swapping to one, because of the possible shortened lifespans from frequent reads/writes vs an HDD.
It took doing more research, reading what experts said about how the tech had gotten better and that later models weren’t as bad as the older ones, to change my mind and make the swap.
As someone who uses 200+ mods, it is a night and day difference. Even with other MMOs that have instanced zones, the loading just zips on by as if it wasn’t instanced.
I even swapped the ones in my PS3 and PS4 to SSD. Huge difference.
Been running a SSD for years now and it’s been great. The best was prob playing bf4 and you would load and be in the game and half way across the map before a HDD b user was.
If there was ever a reason to get an SSD, it was Legion Dalaran loading times. I remember some friends taking over a minute to load while I was in almost instantly lol.
Everyone and I mean everyone who games should have at least one SSD for their main games. It’s one of the best investments you can make for your PC!
Game loading is as fast as the more expensive TLC or SLC nvme drives like the 970, but they cost the same as your typical SATA TLC drive.
The only time you lose nvme speed vs those other drives is sustain copying like video production work, and these are the wrong drives for that application anyway.
Endurance, you’d have to write them over so many times that it’s generally not an issue in it’s useful lifespan.
Crucial P1, Intel 660p, etc. These also have dram or at least SLC cache memory and really amazing algorithms to enhance performance without the cost.
I am running a 1tb Intel 660p as my main boot drive. It has most of my games on it but wow I installed later and put it on my Samsung 860.
SSDs are faster sure, but storage is a still much a factor here, especially as games get bigger and bigger. That’s not the issue of coarse, infact that’s been going on since computers was invented. But a 4TB external (i’m using externals here) HDD costs little under or little over then $100, while the 4TB SSD external goes about $600 bucks, maybe $400 if you look in the right place.
So if you need to spend cheap, it does come at a cost of either speed or storage. If you can afford it but need to budget for other things, that might be a bit of an issue as well. (though 4tb is admittedly superfluous.) If you can afford it easily and then some more, it’s a non issue.
Personally for me in my experience, i would just only advise you to get the SSD if you only need it, like for WoW for instance, or for games where load times are a huge issue for you. Like going maybe over 5 minutes in total to get into the game, or 30 seconds and more at a time to go from one area to the next in WoW or other games where you will see a bunch of loading screens.
I think there’s definitely a balance that can be struck here. I can’t envision any scenario where no SSD’s at all come into play, especially with the availability for cheap low capacity SSD’s.
High speed storage is much, much less expensive than it used to be; however you are correct that as you increase in capacity, the price doesn’t necessarily scale linearly.
I would say that the best balance is a configuration of either of the following:
$80 Extreme budget 2.2TB storage total:
$25 Inexpensive 240GB SSD solely for operating system and frequent programs
$55 Inexpensive 2TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive for games, mass storage
$110 All-in-one budget 1TB Total:
$110 1TB NVME/SATA SSD for well…everything. Partitions can help with management.
$220 Mass Storage + Gaming 5TB total
$110 1TB NVME/SATA SSD
$100 4TB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
As for myself, I’ve accumulated numerous drives over time.
I started off with a cheap 120gb SSD, and a 480gb ssd + a leftover 1tb 7200rpm laptop HDD for a combined of around 1.6TB. OS was on the little SSD, games on the 480gb SSD, and just random stuff on the old spinner.
Now, I’ve taken both of those SSDs and used them for my daughter’s gaming PC build, and am using the following:
3TB
$100 1TB Intel 660P NVME SSD (OS, frequent programs, frequent games)
$110 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD (games)
(~$50 value) 1TB 7200RPM Laptop SATA HDD (pictures, videos, other junk)
My TV gaming PC has the following:
$20 120GB SSD
$54 2TB HDD
Moral of the story: There’s no reason NOT to get at least a $20 SSD for Windows/chrome.
If you are a game I play a lot and prioritize, you go on the 660p. If you are not as important, you go on the Samsung. If you are a random steam game that I might play once for 20 minutes, you go on the HARD DRIVE lol
I do have to contest against buying 120GB for $20, since the 1TB internal (the ones you have to put inside the computer) does go for $100 at minimum, maybe less depend on where your looking, and the 120gb for $20, while very cheap, doesn’t seem to be a good price per byte… or something like that a sort here. I’m no tech expert, but i did a bit of calculating and to get up to the $100 minimum $140 maximum to compare to 1TB’s price point, it only comes out to 720gb or 840gb. In order to get up to the 1Tb mark, you have to get about 9 120GB’s, that isn’t even including the space the storage drive itself will take up before you boot them up, which that is about 10%. This obviously can be applied everywhere else the further up you go, but i digress.
I would honestly recommend 1TB at minimum the very least since it’s cheaper in the long term, that is being overtime.
I agree; that’s why I don’t bother with them anymore. Cost per GB the 1gb ones are best value IMO, at 2tb they are no cost savings over 2x 1tb drives, and as you get higher they cost even more per gb.
I just put the $25 240gb SSDs out there because coming from no high speed storage, the $25 buy-in for the tech is relatively inexpensive and much easier to swallow than $100, especially for someone who’s skeptical about it.
I also would not ever recommend a 120gb SSD anymore (i only have them because they are old recycled ones from the past) as price per gb is high generally compared against the 240gb that is only $5 more, as well as I feel 120gb no longer being sufficient for OS/frequent programs. That’s why I recommended the $25 240gb as an entry level.
I still stand by my recommendations for QLC drives. Most users will get the absolute best bang for their buck out of a QLC SATA or NVME drive with DRAM/SLC Cache tech. Most users aren’t copying large files or large batches of files all day, and for your regular gaming/usage they are amazing value/performance.
The write endurance is not even an issue for these users. You’d have to write 110gb every day for 5 years to hit its endurance limit (200TB written), which is very unlikely.
Maybe you install one 50gb game a week (13,000GB written over a 5 year span, or 13tb out of 200tb endurace), that would extend the working life 15.4 years.
Maybe you don’t even hit close to that, and are like most people and write maybe 100gb a month, in which case you are looking at a 166.7 years to hit the limit.
In other words, 99% of people the endurance metric is meaningless.