Combining 2 different ssd brands?

[Nick3]

I have a MAXIMUS VIII HERO ALPHA motherboard, GTX 980ti graphics card, 1tb hard drive and a 500gb samsung ssd. I was just wondering if I can use a 1tb western digital blue ssd in combination with my 500gb samsung 850 evo ssd? Or do I have to use the same brands in my computer for it to work? And does anyone know if my motherboard has enough sata slots in the first place? Im guessing it should I mean it is a gaming motherboard after all.

My guess is no but I just want to make sure because im checking amazon for these ssd's and they arent cheap. It would really suck ass to buy a 1tb western digital ssd for $279.99 and not able to use it. I didnt realize when I built this computer that 500gb wasnt that much memory for the games I play which are Arma3, Dayz SA, Stranded Deep, Star Citizen, etc.

 

[Herc08]

Well, the answer is no, it doesn't have to be the same brand. But why on earth do you want three drives with one of them having moving parts? I would get a 2 or 4TB mechanical drive and work from there. You will still come out cheaper than getting that SSD. That's just my two cents.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19789124,0,2302594]Well, the answer is no, it doesn't have to be the same brand. But why on earth do you want three drives with one of them having moving parts? I would get a 2 or 4TB mechanical drive and work from there. You will still come out cheaper than getting that SSD. That's just my two cents. [/quotemsg]


Well i heard using ssds are much better than mechanical drives for gaming, and its the first time i built a computer too so im trying to make it the best as i possibly can with my budget, seeing as im going to use this pc for quite a while.

 

[rhysiam]

When you say, "use it with", do you mean just use them all as separate storage drives? Because yes, you can do that no problem and you have 6 SATA ports for up to 6 SATA drives, plus M.2 and U.2 options for high speed NVMe drive (don't worry about that for now, they're overpriced).

You can put up to 6 SATA drives in that computer of any type (HDD/SSD/Hybrid Drives) and they will all appear as separate hard drives. When you install programs you can choose which drive to install them on. You can save files on any drive you like. And Steam and Origin give you options to store or move your game library to different drives.
So that all works no problem.

When you say "use them together", a suite of features called "RAID" allow you to combine multiple storage drives together to (theoretically) improve performance and/or introduce redundancy (that means a drive can fail/die and you don't lose your data). If that's what you're talking about, then as @Herc08 says, that's a terrible idea for combining HDD and SSDs together.

If you're a first time builder, I would advise you just get a decent sized SSD for your boot drive and a few key games/programs that you use a lot. 250GB is fine, if you can afford a 500GB that's nice as it'll allow you to put more games/programs on there.
Then you get a large HDD for everything else. Store all your files and most your games on the HDD. For files it really doesn't make any difference. Games running off the HDD will tend to have slower level load times, but once you're actually in and playing, the HDD vs SSD makes no real difference.

That's really all you need, one SSD with as much space as you can afford without taking money away from more important things (CPU & Graphics Card). And then one HDD that's big enough for everything else.

 

[Herc08]

[quotemsg=19789136,0,2488229][quotemsg=19789124,0,2302594]Well, the answer is no, it doesn't have to be the same brand. But why on earth do you want three drives with one of them having moving parts? I would get a 2 or 4TB mechanical drive and work from there. You will still come out cheaper than getting that SSD. That's just my two cents. [/quotemsg]


Well i heard using ssds are much better than mechanical drives for gaming, and its the first time i built a computer too so im trying to make it the best as i possibly can with my budget, seeing as im going to use this pc for quite a while.
[/quotemsg]

Again, it's only for loading..and that's 10-15 seconds. After the game loads, it even between mechanical and SSD.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19789175,0,1287211]When you say, "use it with", do you mean just use them all as separate storage drives? Because yes, you can do that no problem and you have 6 SATA ports for up to 6 SATA drives, plus M.2 and U.2 options for high speed NVMe drive (don't worry about that for now, they're overpriced).

You can put up to 6 SATA drives in that computer of any type (HDD/SSD/Hybrid Drives) and they will all appear as separate hard drives. When you install programs you can choose which drive to install them on. You can save files on any drive you like. And Steam and Origin give you options to store or move your game library to different drives.
So that all works no problem.

When you say "use them together", a suite of features called "RAID" allow you to combine multiple storage drives together to (theoretically) improve performance and/or introduce redundancy (that means a drive can fail/die and you don't lose your data). If that's what you're talking about, then as @Herc08 says, that's a terrible idea for combining HDD and SSDs together.

If you're a first time builder, I would advise you just get a decent sized SSD for your boot drive and a few key games/programs that you use a lot. 250GB is fine, if you can afford a 500GB that's nice as it'll allow you to put more games/programs on there.
Then you get a large HDD for everything else. Store all your files and most your games on the HDD. For files it really doesn't make any difference. Games running off the HDD will tend to have slower level load times, but once you're actually in and playing, the HDD vs SSD makes no real difference.

That's really all you need, one SSD with as much space as you can afford without taking money away from more important things (CPU & Graphics Card). And then one HDD that's big enough for everything else.[/quotemsg]

Ok first off my mistake I have a 250gb ssd instead of 500gb.
When you said "get a decent sized SSD for your boot drive and a few key games/programs that you use a lot" do you mean its possible to have one drive used as both a boot drive and just extra memory? Because I know theres no way I could have used 1tb worth of space, and I do have a 1tb Internal Hard drive. So if theres some way to use that as both my boot drive and extra memory then I might not even need to buy anything more. But yes as of right now I just need to use it and have more memory in my computer.

My issue that I have right now is just that I seem to have no memory left for games and updates. Its really weirding me out because when I first built this computer I had enough memory for Arma, Dayz, and Star Citizen. Now all of a sudden I dont have enough memory even after deleting Dayz and Star Citizen. It seems like something is constantly eating up memory but I dont know what it is. I even performed a Disk Cleanup a few minutes ago and it said I had 20gb free. Now I have 18gb free. What the hell is happening? I had enough memory for all 3 of those games when I built my computer. I dont understand how now I dont have enough memory for any of them and its only been about a year of owning this pc

 

[rhysiam]

[quotemsg=19789223,0,2488229]Ok first off my mistake I have a 250gb ssd instead of 500gb.
When you said "get a decent sized SSD for your boot drive and a few key games/programs that you use a lot" do you mean its possible to have one drive used as both a boot drive and just extra memory? Because I know theres no way I could have used 1tb worth of space, and I do have a 1tb Internal Hard drive. So if theres some way to use that as both my boot drive and extra memory then I might not even need to buy anything more.

My issue that I have right now is just that I seem to have no memory left for games and updates. Its really weirding me out because when I first built this computer I had enough memory for Arma, Dayz, and Star Citizen. Now all of a sudden I dont have enough memory even after deleting Dayz and Star Citizen. It seems like something is constantly eating up memory but I dont know what it is. I even performed a Disk Cleanup a few minutes ago and it said I had 20gb free. Now I have 18gb free. What the hell is happening?[/quotemsg]
Can we just get language straight first. "Memory" generally refers to your system RAM, like the DDR4 kit you have in your computer. What you're talking about with HDD/SSDs is called "storage". Sorry to be pedantic, but otherwise we might get crossed wires and confusion. If you ever get warnings from your PC that you're running out of "memory", that a totally different problem.

Back to storage... So you already have a 250GB SSD and a 1TB HDD? Is that right?
And you're running out of space on the SSD?
How much space is free on the HDD? It should appear under your "File Explorer" -> "This PC" -> D: (or another drive letter, it doesn't matter). The point is, you should have a second storage drive there under "This PC" where you can store data.

If the above is what you're seeing, and you have plenty of space on your HDD (D:, or whatever it's labelled), then we can help you move the right sorts of data from your SSD which is fast, but small and expensive, onto your HDD which is cheap and large, but relatively slow.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19789249,0,1287211][quotemsg=19789223,0,2488229]Ok first off my mistake I have a 250gb ssd instead of 500gb.
When you said "get a decent sized SSD for your boot drive and a few key games/programs that you use a lot" do you mean its possible to have one drive used as both a boot drive and just extra memory? Because I know theres no way I could have used 1tb worth of space, and I do have a 1tb Internal Hard drive. So if theres some way to use that as both my boot drive and extra memory then I might not even need to buy anything more.

My issue that I have right now is just that I seem to have no memory left for games and updates. Its really weirding me out because when I first built this computer I had enough memory for Arma, Dayz, and Star Citizen. Now all of a sudden I dont have enough memory even after deleting Dayz and Star Citizen. It seems like something is constantly eating up memory but I dont know what it is. I even performed a Disk Cleanup a few minutes ago and it said I had 20gb free. Now I have 18gb free. What the hell is happening?[/quotemsg]
Can we just get language straight first. "Memory" generally refers to your system RAM, like the DDR4 kit you have in your computer. What you're talking about with HDD/SSDs is called "storage". Sorry to be pedantic, but otherwise we might get crossed wires and confusion. If you ever get warnings from your PC that you're running out of "memory", that a totally different problem.

Back to storage... So you already have a 250GB SSD and a 1TB HDD? Is that right?
And you're running out of space on the SSD?
How much space is free on the HDD? It should appear under your "File Explorer" -> "This PC" -> D: (or another drive letter, it doesn't matter). The point is, you should have a second storage drive there under "This PC" where you can store data.

If the above is what you're seeing, and you have plenty of space on your HDD (D:, or whatever it's labelled), then we can help you move the right sorts of data from your SSD which is fast, but small and expensive, onto your HDD which is cheap and large, but relatively slow. [/quotemsg]

Ok so in my file explorer, under "This PC" it says I have now "17.7 free of 232gb" on my Local Disk (C. Next to it I have my DVD drive. Keep in mind I did a disk cleanup a few minutes ago and had 20gb free of 232, so idk what is eating away the memory there.
When I click on my Local Disk (C drive, it just says the following:
MSI
NVIDIA
Perf Logs
Program Files
Program Files (x86)
Users
Windows

 

[rhysiam]

so idk what is eating away the [strike]memory[/strike] storage there

fixed it for ya

**Update** -> let's solve one problem at a time. We need to get your HDD online so we can move stuff over to it.

[quotemsg=19789277,0,2488229]Ok so in my file explorer, under "This PC" it says I have now "17.7 free of 232gb" on my Local Disk (C. Next to it I have my DVD drive. Keep in mind I did a disk cleanup a few minutes ago and had 20gb free of 232, so idk what is eating away the memory there.
When I click on my Local Disk (C drive, it just says the following:
MSI
NVIDIA
Perf Logs
Program Files
Program Files (x86)
Users
Windows[/quotemsg]
So you have a 500GB HDD that's not appearing under "This PC". Again - the drive letter is not important, you can assign that whatever you like. But there's no E Drive/ F Drive, or whatever, that 500GB. Correct?

If that's the case, right click on your Windows Icon (bottom left of screen - I'm assuming Windows 10 here), and choose "Disk Management". That should list all the disk drives attached to your system. Is there are 500GB Drive there?

If not, you need to shut the computer down and double check the HDD has power (from the PSU) and a SATA cable connecting the drive to the motherboard. If that's all okay, go into the BIOS and see if the drive appears there.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19789304,0,1287211]

so idk what is eating away the [strike]memory[/strike] storage there

fixed it for ya

**Update** -> let's solve one problem at a time. We need to get your HDD online so we can move stuff over to it.

[quotemsg=19789277,0,2488229]Ok so in my file explorer, under "This PC" it says I have now "17.7 free of 232gb" on my Local Disk (C. Next to it I have my DVD drive. Keep in mind I did a disk cleanup a few minutes ago and had 20gb free of 232, so idk what is eating away the memory there.
When I click on my Local Disk (C drive, it just says the following:
MSI
NVIDIA
Perf Logs
Program Files
Program Files (x86)
Users
Windows[/quotemsg]
So you have a 500GB HDD that's not appearing under "This PC". Again - the drive letter is not important, you can assign that whatever you like. But there's no E Drive/ F Drive, or whatever, that 500GB. Correct?

If that's the case, right click on your Windows Icon (bottom left of screen - I'm assuming Windows 10 here), and choose "Disk Management". That should list all the disk drives attached to your system. Is there are 500GB Drive there?

If not, you need to shut the computer down and double check the HDD has power (from the PSU) and a SATA cable connecting the drive to the motherboard. If that's all okay, go into the BIOS and see if the drive appears there.[/quotemsg]

Well no I have my 1tb Western Digital Hard drive and 250gb samsung ssd. This is what Im seeing:
http://
http://

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19789304,0,1287211]

so idk what is eating away the [strike]memory[/strike] storage there

fixed it for ya

**Update** -> let's solve one problem at a time. We need to get your HDD online so we can move stuff over to it.

[quotemsg=19789277,0,2488229]Ok so in my file explorer, under "This PC" it says I have now "17.7 free of 232gb" on my Local Disk (C. Next to it I have my DVD drive. Keep in mind I did a disk cleanup a few minutes ago and had 20gb free of 232, so idk what is eating away the memory there.
When I click on my Local Disk (C drive, it just says the following:
MSI
NVIDIA
Perf Logs
Program Files
Program Files (x86)
Users
Windows[/quotemsg]
So you have a 500GB HDD that's not appearing under "This PC". Again - the drive letter is not important, you can assign that whatever you like. But there's no E Drive/ F Drive, or whatever, that 500GB. Correct?

If that's the case, right click on your Windows Icon (bottom left of screen - I'm assuming Windows 10 here), and choose "Disk Management". That should list all the disk drives attached to your system. Is there are 500GB Drive there?

If not, you need to shut the computer down and double check the HDD has power (from the PSU) and a SATA cable connecting the drive to the motherboard. If that's all okay, go into the BIOS and see if the drive appears there.[/quotemsg]

So how do I get my HDD online lol?

 

[rhysiam]

[quotemsg=19789348,0,2488229]So how do I get my HDD online lol?[/quotemsg]
Here's a guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-format-new-hard-drive-windows-10

You want to follow the steps that start about half-way down the page, titled: How to create and format a new partition using Disk Management

NOTE: this will permanently delete any data on your HDD (not your SSD, just the HDD).

Once you have that HDD up and running, you can move data from the SSD to the HDD to clean up space.
1) Games: Follow OPTION 2 in this guide (I wouldn't use option 1 personally, it's created headaches for me in the past): https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/07/how-to-move-a-pc-game-to-another-hard-drive-without-re-downloading-it/

2) Documents/downloads, etc: http://www.dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-10/how-to-change-the-location-of-user-folders-in-windows-10/
I would just move all my Library folders to the HDD.

Once you've done that, see how much space you have free on the C Drive.

You can also run CCLeaner to free up some extra space.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19789698,0,1287211][quotemsg=19789348,0,2488229]So how do I get my HDD online lol?[/quotemsg]
Here's a guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-format-new-hard-drive-windows-10

You want to follow the steps that start about half-way down the page, titled: How to create and format a new partition using Disk Management

NOTE: this will permanently delete any data on your HDD (not your SSD, just the HDD).

Once you have that HDD up and running, you can move data from the SSD to the HDD to clean up space.
1) Games: Follow OPTION 2 in this guide (I wouldn't use option 1 personally, it's created headaches for me in the past): https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/07/how-to-move-a-pc-game-to-another-hard-drive-without-re-downloading-it/

2) Documents/downloads, etc: http://www.dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-10/how-to-change-the-location-of-user-folders-in-windows-10/
I would just move all my Library folders to the HDD.

Once you've done that, see how much space you have free on the C Drive.

You can also run CCLeaner to free up some extra space. [/quotemsg]


Hey thanks alot man! Ive got my drives formatting as we speak! Appreciate it!!!

 

[rhysiam]

[quotemsg=19793500,0,2488229]Hey thanks alot man! Ive got my drives formatting as we speak! Appreciate it!!!
[/quotemsg]
Glad it helped.

When you say "drives" (plural), I hope you didn't format your C Drive (your SSD), because that will have simply removed everything off your system. I don't actually think it would allow you to do this because the pagefile will be on the system drive... but yeah, don't format your SSD, obviously.

Just a couple of notes on the SSD free space issue. You really want to keep at least 20% free on an SSD at all times. SSDs use free space to keep everything working smoothly in a way that HDD don't, so it's much more important on an SSD to keep a good chunk of free space. So you should aim for at least 40-50GB free at all times.
Also, Windows does accumulate junk over time, particularly with updates, etc. So you can run the Windows Disk Cleanup or 3rd party programs like CCleaner periodically if you find you free space dropping too much. However, it really shouldn't happen quickly (except for large rounds of updates). If you have 60GB free and that goes down to 30-40GB free over a few days when no updates were installed and you didn't fill up that space yourself, that's a potential problem that you'd want to investigate. But over a 6 month period I would expect your 60GB free to drop down gradually.

Finally, and just out of curiosity, how long have you been using that rig with the un-initialised 1TB drive in there? That's a shame! Anyway, glad you know how to use it now and that should solve all your storage problems once you've followed the steps in my previous response. Good luck.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19793542,0,1287211][quotemsg=19793500,0,2488229]Hey thanks alot man! Ive got my drives formatting as we speak! Appreciate it!!!
[/quotemsg]
Glad it helped.

When you say "drives" (plural), I hope you didn't format your C Drive (your SSD), because that will have simply removed everything off your system. I don't actually think it would allow you to do this because the pagefile will be on the system drive... but yeah, don't format your SSD, obviously.

Just a couple of notes on the SSD free space issue. You really want to keep at least 20% free on an SSD at all times. SSDs use free space to keep everything working smoothly in a way that HDD don't, so it's much more important on an SSD to keep a good chunk of free space. So you should aim for at least 40-50GB free at all times.
Also, Windows does accumulate junk over time, particularly with updates, etc. So you can run the Windows Disk Cleanup or 3rd party programs like CCleaner periodically if you find you free space dropping too much. However, it really shouldn't happen quickly (except for large rounds of updates). If you have 60GB free and that goes down to 30-40GB free over a few days when no updates were installed and you didn't fill up that space yourself, that's a potential problem that you'd want to investigate. But over a 6 month period I would expect your 60GB free to drop down gradually.

Finally, and just out of curiosity, how long have you been using that rig with the un-initialised 1TB drive in there? That's a shame! Anyway, glad you know how to use it now and that should solve all your storage problems once you've followed the steps in my previous response. Good luck.[/quotemsg]

Yeah im not formatting my C drive since it says its online already, but I did format the 1TB hard drive and I also just bought a 1tb ssd that I formatted and im usingt to download games onto as we speak. Western digital makes some great ssds that perform better than samsung and for less price too!

Ive had the pc about a year and I didnt realize that you have to format your storages like ssds and hard drives once you plug them in. I thought it was a simple "plug and be able to use immediately" kind of deal lol. So now I have a 2tb pc and shouldnt have any memory problems in the foreseeable future lol

But regarding the memory issue, I really have no idea what keeps eating away at my C drive. I used the "disk cleaner" program yesterday and it got me up to 20gb free memory, and now I have 17gb. Idk whats going on there :/

 

[rhysiam]

[quotemsg=19793658,0,2488229]Yeah im not formatting my C drive since it says its online already, but I did format the 1TB hard drive and I also just bought a 1tb ssd that I formatted and im usingt to download games onto as we speak.[/quotemsg] Western digital makes some great ssds that perform better than samsung and for less price too!
Good good. Just FYI, WD drives are not faster than Samsung drives in the same category. Their Black NVMe drives are much slower than the 960 EVO, and their higher end "Blue" SATA drives are again substantially slower than the 850 Evo. They are often priced well though, so can be great choices for price conscious shoppers. But don't see them as high end or fast drives.

But regarding the memory issue, I really have no idea what keeps eating away at my C drive. I used the "disk cleaner" program yesterday and it got me up to 20gb free memory, and now I have 17gb. Idk whats going on there :/

It's storage, not memory!

Just watch it. It's not that unusual to drop 3GB in a day. Move stuff off as I directed and keep an eye on it. If it keeps dropping each day by that amount, then you have a problem.

 

[Nick3]

[quotemsg=19793884,0,1287211][quotemsg=19793658,0,2488229]Yeah im not formatting my C drive since it says its online already, but I did format the 1TB hard drive and I also just bought a 1tb ssd that I formatted and im usingt to download games onto as we speak.[/quotemsg] Western digital makes some great ssds that perform better than samsung and for less price too!
Good good. Just FYI, WD drives are not faster than Samsung drives in the same category. Their Black NVMe drives are much slower than the 960 EVO, and their higher end "Blue" SATA drives are again substantially slower than the 850 Evo. They are often priced well though, so can be great choices for price conscious shoppers. But don't see them as high end or fast drives.

But regarding the memory issue, I really have no idea what keeps eating away at my C drive. I used the "disk cleaner" program yesterday and it got me up to 20gb free memory, and now I have 17gb. Idk whats going on there :/

It's storage, not memory!

Just watch it. It's not that unusual to drop 3GB in a day. Move stuff off as I directed and keep an eye on it. If it keeps dropping each day by that amount, then you have a problem.[/quotemsg]

Alright lol and sorry i keep forgetting to use storage and not memory :lol:

Is ccleaner really useful though? I read forums and articles where people say that the disk cleaner app already installed does everything a third party app would do and that its foolish to spend money to those third party cleaners?

 

[rhysiam]

[quotemsg=19793988,0,2488229]Alright lol and sorry i keep forgetting to use storage and not memory :lol:

Is ccleaner really useful though? I read forums and articles where people say that the disk cleaner app already installed does everything a third party app would do and that its foolish to spend money to those third party cleaners?[/quotemsg]
All good !

CCleaner will find things that disk cleanup doesn't. I've found I haven't needed to use ccleaner for ages though, disk cleanup is enough for me. There's no blanket statement here because space will accumulate on your PC depending on how you use it.

The first thing to do is more your libraries off (Documents, downloads, etc). Downloads particularly will grow as you download anything. So get that on those no the HDD and that can make a big difference.