[SOLVED] 1 or multiple SSDs

[xerxesaria]

Hi.

I am building a gaming PC. Budget is around €1500.

I want to use SSDs for storage. Questions:

1. One 250 GB SSD for OS and One 2 TB SSD for others (games, movies etc) OR, One 2 TB/4 TB SSD for all others?
2. SATA SSD or NVME?
3. Which brand is best for SATA SSD and which is better for NVME?

I’ve searched for an answer to these questions, but most of them are from 2017/2018.

Thank you.

 

[Lutfij]

1| Multiple SSD's.

2| If your board can support two NVMe's and you have a deep wallet, then why not? If the former but you're on a budget, get the OS/app's launchers on the NVMe.

3| Where are you located? Brands will be impossible to find or very abundant depending on region.

 

[sizzling]

I have come to the conclusion that you are unlikely to notice any benefit of NVMe over SATA in a gaming pc. I’ve got a Corsair MP510 NVMe 1TB and a cheap 1TB ADATA SATA SSD in my system. When I built it I kept my most frequently played games on the NVMe but having moved a few games between drives there is no noticeable real world difference. I have Windows on the NVMe and it probably boots a few seconds faster but compared to my old system that did not have NVMe I cannot tell the difference.

Linustechtips did an interesting comparison. Although not exactly scientific they got the team to blind test 3 or 4 (can’t remember exactly) and the only rule was they could not do a side by side comparison, they had to use each pc on its own. It’s worth a watch but my take away was it supported what I thought, even those with experience of each drive couldn’t tell the difference in a gaming pc.

 

[xerxesaria]

1| Multiple SSD's.

2| If your board can support two NVMe's and you have a deep wallet, then why not? If the former but you're on a budget, get the OS/app's launchers on the NVMe.

3| Where are you located? Brands will be impossible to find or very abundant depending on region.

With SSDs almost not failing and if they fail, you can still read them, could you explain why 2 separate ones? Just to convince me!
Also, I live in the Netherlands. There is plenty to come by and if not, it’s a 20 minute drive to Germany where everything is abundant!

 

[xerxesaria]

I have come to the conclusion that you are unlikely to notice any benefit of NVMe over SATA in a gaming pc. I’ve got a Corsair MP510 NVMe 1TB and a cheap 1TB ADATA SATA SSD in my system. When I built it I kept my most frequently played games on the NVMe but having moved a few games between drives there is no noticeable real world difference. I have Windows on the NVMe and it probably boots a few seconds faster but compared to my old system that did not have NVMe I cannot tell the difference.

Linustechtips did an interesting comparison. Although not exactly scientific they got the team to blind test 3 or 4 (can’t remember exactly) and the only rule was they could not do a side by side comparison, they had to use each pc on its own. It’s worth a watch but my take away was it supported what I thought, even those with experience of each drive couldn’t tell the difference in a gaming pc.

Thank you. I will check out those videos. But if you are saying there isn’t much difference in speed to sense, then I’ll drink by the SATA SSD. Much cheaper too.

 

[SkyNetRising]

1. One 250 GB SSD for OS and One 2 TB SSD for others (games, movies etc) OR, One 2 TB/4 TB SSD for all others?
2. SATA SSD or NVME?
3. Which brand is best for SATA SSD and which is better for NVME?

1. Multiple SSDs.

#1- for OS - 250GB,​

#2 for games 1TB-2TB,​

multi TB HDD for movies (how about 12TB ?) - Those consume soooo much space. And they don't need to be on SSD.​

2. NVME for OS SSD, sata for games SSD.

3. Crucial and Samsung.

 

[USAFRet]

Single or multiple drives is purely personal preference.

Some people just want a single drive for everything.

Me, multiple drives all the way.
1 for the OS and applications, other drive(s) for other things.
Windows and applications have gotten really good at managing multiple drives. It is no longer a logistical nightmare.

 

[dreamteam]

Which brand is best for SATA SSD and which is better for NVME?
I’ve searched for an answer to these questions, but most of them are from 2017/2018.

because most of the current 2.5'' SATA drives were released back in 2018

the Samsung 850 PRO had a 10 year warranty period for a good reason.
I have seen a review of the 256GB drive which lasted only 9.1PT write cycles...
yes 9100 TB !!! Samsung specs rates this drive to last 150TB

in short the consumer Samsung drives are as good as other industrial level drives with SLC chips.

 

[USAFRet]

because most of the current 2.5'' SATA drives were released back in 2018

the Samsung 850 PRO had a 10 year warranty period for a good reason.
I have seen a review of the 256GB drive which lasted only 9.1PT write cycles...
yes 9100 TB !!! Samsung specs rates this drive to last 150TB

in short the consumer Samsung drives are as good as other industrial level drives with SLC chips.

"only" 9100TB?

This prompts a couple of questions....

1. Of all the solid state drive you own or used, what is the MAX TBW you've seen on any of them?
2. Outside of a database server or similar, or an endurance test, have you ever seen any consumer grade drive die from too many write cycles? I'm talking about drives in general consumer use.

 

[xerxesaria]

Thank you all. I know what I am going to do!...Exciting

 

[xerxesaria]

I have come to the conclusion that you are unlikely to notice any benefit of NVMe over SATA in a gaming pc. I’ve got a Corsair MP510 NVMe 1TB and a cheap 1TB ADATA SATA SSD in my system. When I built it I kept my most frequently played games on the NVMe but having moved a few games between drives there is no noticeable real world difference. I have Windows on the NVMe and it probably boots a few seconds faster but compared to my old system that did not have NVMe I cannot tell the difference.

Linustechtips did an interesting comparison. Although not exactly scientific they got the team to blind test 3 or 4 (can’t remember exactly) and the only rule was they could not do a side by side comparison, they had to use each pc on its own. It’s worth a watch but my take away was it supported what I thought, even those with experience of each drive couldn’t tell the difference in a gaming pc.

I watched that video today. Interesting how everyone guessed wrong!