[SOLVED] Fastest read/write SSD or HDD

[beeko]

Hi

I have updated some components on my PC and I am playing MFS2020 a lot and would like to make my PC run as fast as possible for the game.
I was thinking if it is better to install the game to my SSD where is only 160GB free space (the game takes about 150GB) or should I install it on my HDD where is like 1TB free space?
So in SSD there would be very little free space but faster read speeds, or HDD with a lot of free space but slower read speeds...

Also, if HDD is better option, should I first install the game and then move all storage files or opposite way to get faster speeds?
Because of what I understood, the read speeds go slower the more inner circle you go on the HDD...

Thanks in advance

 

[Dj0gany]

Dont ever stress a storage drive so much that it has 5% or less of its capacity left.
Store all your games/files on your hard drive,leave only widnows on SSD.
If you put your game on a SSD it wont affect FPS,just faster loading times,and its not worth putting a 150GB game on SSD which has only 160GB left.

 

[richiestang_78]

Hi

I have updated some components on my PC and I am playing MFS2020 a lot and would like to make my PC run as fast as possible for the game.
I was thinking if it is better to install the game to my SSD where is only 160GB free space (the game takes about 150GB) or should I install it on my HDD where is like 1TB free space?
So in SSD there would be very little free space but faster read speeds, or HDD with a lot of free space but slower read speeds...

Also, if HDD is better option, should I first install the game and then move all storage files or opposite way to get faster speeds?
Because of what I understood, the read speeds go slower the more inner circle you go on the HDD...

Thanks in advance

I wouldn't recommend filling a drive to near capacity, you should always leave 15-20% empty, especially if the SSD is your boot drive. As far as load times MFS2020 is alot faster on a SSD, what I woudl do is look around online for a SSD sale, you can find 500GB or even 1TB Crucial MX500s quite cheap usually and they are a great SSD.

 

[beeko]

Thanks for the replies

So I will install the game on the HDD, question is, should I install it first and then move all other files or other way around? I want the game to be accessible on the faster side of the plate

 

[Dj0gany]

Thanks for the replies

So I will install the game on the HDD, question is, should I install it first and then move all other files or other way around? I want the game to be accessible on the faster side of the plate

What do you already have on that ssd?

 

[beeko]

There is only windows and steam with cs:go on the SSD. All other files are on the HDD

 

[Dj0gany]

There is only windows and steam with cs:go on the SSD. All other files are on the HDD

I would just install the whole game on the HDD and leave everything there.
You can get a 250GB for those games,or a higher capacity one if you want more games to store on it.
Typically with 250GB ssd the only thing you want to leave on them is windows and related programs,nothing else.

 

[beeko]

Yes that's what I am going to do, but I'm only wondering whether to move all files first and THEN install the game, or install the game first and THEN move all other files... What I read from internet is that HDD have faster read times in the outer side of the plate, so I guess I should install the game first and move other files after...

You see, I have 2 HDD and 1 SSD connected to the PC and I am formatting the HDD which Im going to use with the MFS2020 and only moving necessary files there and all the back up files I leave on the other HDD for storage.

 

[geofelt]

Since you can now run MFS2020, do a little analysis.
Start up task manager and look at what is happening when you start up the game.
I think you will see not only disk activity, but also ethernet activity as well as cpu activity.
With my limited experience with the game, I have observed that it takes quite a long time to initialize, even with a very fast pcie ssd.

Then, while the game is running, see what the performance monitor is showing.
It is not clear to me if the game is slowed by the cpu or by the drive speed. Or, from the graphics card for that matter.
The good news is that even low fps seems to work well.

As a general principle, though, it would be beneficial to start using a ssd for all except bulk storage. You can buy a 1tb ssd of some sort for $100.

 

[beeko]

Well I already uninstalled the game since I wanted to format the HDD... Yeah I would definitely buy more ssds if i had money but the game runs well with the current setup so I will upgrade maybe later. I just want to squeeze as much as I can from my comp...

There is this developers console in game and it shows fps and some other info, with my old cpu (i5 3570k) it told me "limited by mainthread" which probably meant the CPU, now with my new cpu it gives me "limited by GPU", but the fps is around 50 with med-high settings so its enough for me.. And I haven't even done any overclocking yet. But what is still interesting for me is that does HDD's start to fill data from the outer or inner part of the plate, since I red somewhere that hdd read/write speeds are faster on the outer parts of the plate so maybe that way it's possible to get faster loading speeds

 

[geofelt]

Games are always limited by some component.
What is your new cpu?
Limited by main thread likely means the single thread performance of the master thread.
I am curious as to what improvement switched the limiter for MFS2020

 

[Karadjgne]

Windows is on the ssd. That's all that matters. When you install the game, it'll have the game files on hdd, but the operating files/saved game files will be on ssd.

When you start the game, that's done through windows, so windows will use up a temp file and cache the working part of the game.

Basically its All run through ssd speeds, the only time the hdd is accessed is for game files that are not cached, like a new map, but that still gets cached on ssd when necessary. This makes for slightly longer map load times, but nothing close to only hdd slowness.

This is why it's imperative you leave a minimum of 10% of the ssd drive size open, just for that cache folder use.

With small SSDs, it's also advisable to totally disable Hibernation as that'll eat up 75% of the size of your ram automatically from the ssd, it's reserved space and not usable except for boot purposes.

 

[beeko]

My new cpu is AMD Ryzen 5600X. I have plenty of free space on both drives so they should function properly. I don't know if hibernation was on in my system but I just disabled it anyway...