[SOLVED] [Gaming performance] Better to have OS installed on a separate drive from installed games ?

[Djak372]

My Windows 10 is currently installed on a 120 GB Corsair Force Series GT (https://www.corsair.com/ca/en/Categ...b-s-Solid-State-Hard-Drive/p/CSSD-F120GBGT-BK).

I now have a 1TB NVME (WB SN550) (https://shop.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sn550-nvme-ssd#WDS100T2B0C).

I want to maxime my performance while playing games, so I will install them on the new NVME.

However, should I keep Windows 10 on the older SATA SSD, or move it on the same NVME as the installed games ?

I'm worried that Windows 10 will start writing / reading on the NVME as I'm playing the games, therefore reducing the in-game performance.

Thank you for your help !

 

[BogdanH]

Just my personal opinion/experience, ok? NVMe is much faster than SATA, and to my feeling Windows kinda feels running more smooth on NVMe.. things just happen more instantly.
Next decision is more a personal preference: Keep 1TB NVMe as single disk (for OS + whatever you work on), or you partition it -that is, you create two (or more) "logical" drives on it. I prefer the second approach. That is, I would create two logical drives: first would be (say) 128GB for OS and installed software, and the rest for your files, stuff you're working on frequently, few installed games, etc. And I would use that "small" SATA drive for stuff I'm not sure about yet: downloads, software you plan to try in future, etc.
As for gaming speed, there's no difference between SATA and NVMe, and it doesn't matter if you install game on your primary drive (C or elsewhere. See:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COofLeqk_tM

 

[USAFRet]

Having the OS and games on the NVMe won't hurt game performance.

Having the OS on an old 120GB SATA III drive will hurt overall performance much more.

Put the OS and games on the NVMe, repurpose the 120GB for one or two games by itself.


And don't partition the 1TB NVMe, 1 for the OS and 1 for 'games'.
Leave everything as one partition.
Why? Pasrtition like that, and one or the other partition will be TooSmall before long.

 

[BogdanH]

Leave everything as one partition.

-and if you need to reinstall Windows for whatever reason, then all data is lost on whole 1TB drive. But then, as I said, it's always personal decision

 

[USAFRet]

-and if you need to reinstall Windows for whatever reason, then all data is lost on whole 1TB drive. But then, as I said, it's always personal decision

That is why I prefer individual physical drives.

 

[SkyNetRising]

However, should I keep Windows 10 on the older SATA SSD, or move it on the same NVME as the installed games ?

Yes, do that - keep windows on sata SSD. That's easiest/simplest method, also makes most sense.

Migrating OS from sata SSD to NVME SSD won't give much performance benefit.
Yes - your system would boot by couple of seconds faster, but that's about it. Not a big deal.

 

[BogdanH]

That is why I prefer individual physical drives.

From users perspective, there's no difference between two physical drives and two logical drives on single drive. The only benefit for having two physical drives, is in case of hardware failure -hard to imagine both drives would die at the same time.

P.S. I really hope you don't see that as I would argue with you.. I'm only trying to clarify things for others who might be interested on that topic -we both know there's no better or worse decision in this case.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Storage performance largely only affects initial load times in games. Once the game is loaded, storage performance becomes a < 1% factor in performance depending on the game. But even in open world games, I believe they're designed now such that storage performance doesn't impact in-game performance, it just impacts in-game visuals if there's a storage hiccup (i.e., assets may be super low res until higher res versions are loaded in)

Basically, it doesn't matter.

 

[USAFRet]

P.S. I really hope you don't see that as I would argue with you.. I'm only trying to clarify things for others who might be interested on that topic -we both know there's no better or worse decision in this case.

Right.
Some people prefer one large drive for everything, others prefer more than one.

In any case, a comprehensive backup schedule is the One True Way to protect your data.

 

[Phaaze88]

If I have to reinstall Windows for any reason - and the user will, at some point or other:
-motherboard change
-troubleshooting
Then having a dedicated drive for it will make the process go all the more smoothly - spend maybe an hour getting Windows and motherboard drivers back up to speed.
Some apps do like to install files to the C drive - move them to the other drives when prompted. There's also a select few that'll force install themselves there - make a mental note of them or something.


Have both the OS and games/apps on the same drive? Well, one can kiss their day goodbye reinstalling a bunch of stuff...

 

[geofelt]

To answer the OP question, a 120gb ssd may be too small for a windows C drive.
Many things will default to it.
When the drive approaches 90% full, it will slow down and lose endurance.

The value of pcie ssd compared to sata is faster sequential transfer rates.
You will be hard pressed to notice the difference without a benchmark.

There are two sides to the single vs. multiple device argument.
I tend to like the single large SSD for the C drive.
Space is easier to manage.
Installed apps will make entries to the windows registry.
If a separate C drive gets a new clean install of windows, there will be an empty registry and some apps will need to be reinstalled. There is a provision for steam games to avoid this issue.
Settings will need to be reinstalled and sometimes we do not have the means to reinstall old apps.

Any way you look at it, everybody needs backup. Make that EXTERNAL backup.
If you get a ransomware attack or other nasty thing you need external to bail you out.

I shudder to think of the pain to reinstall all after many years on essentially the same windows.
I do not change much so I do not need to update my backup frequently.
What I do is to clone my C drive to a samsung ssd.
In the event of a failure, I have a backup that I know works.
On occasion, I also run a windows backup to a USB connected HDD.
I have not taken the chance to test the recovery from that HDD backup.

Before allowing windows to do an update, I create a user checkpoint using system restore.
That is some protection in case windows pushes out a flawed update.

Whenever I update the motherboard, I use the cloned backup. To date, it has always booted, allowing me to install the new chipset drivers.