[SOLVED] iS 128gb enough for casual use or few light games?

[Lil’bertz]

im planning to buy a cheap <language please> SSD as a boot drive. don't play popular high end games at PC that im gonna put the SSD on (im just gonna revive a slow <again> PC)
is 128gb enough for ms office and some few games like minecraft and dota 2 (planning, not decided yet).
im also planning download more programs like adobe photoshop (or freeware equivalent), and some simple video editing software

 

[LordVile]

im planning to buy a cheap-ass SSD as a boot drive. don't play popular high end games at PC that im gonna put the SSD on (im just gonna revive a slow asf PC)
is 128gb enough for ms office and some few games like minecraft and dota 2(planning, not decided yet).
im also planning download more programs like adobe photoshop(or freeware equivalent), and some simple video editing software

Well I wouldn’t use a super cheap one as they’re not much better than a hard drive. Personally wouldn’t stray below 250gb

 

[kanewolf]

The minimum recommended drive is an MX500 250GB. Less than 250GB and you have to actively manage the available space too much. Windows updates can eat all your space.

 

[USAFRet]

I wouldn't buy a 128GB, nor would I buy a 'cheap SSD', of any size.
Both together? Not even a little bit.

 

[King_V]

I am using a 128GB SSD on a Linux box. HOWEVER, I knew that would be far more than enough for what that machine was to be used for.

I probably could've done the same for my dad's PC, as he was using Windows, MS Office, and Firefox, along with MalwareBytes. His HDD was only showing 50GB of space used after several years of using the machine (a Haswell era i3 with 4GB of RAM that he purchased new)

Still, I'd recommend at least 250GB. Minecraft seems small and simple, but a quick search, and I seem to be finding information that Dota 2 takes up 15GB for initial install, but might be as much as 40GB or more with updates, etc

 

[popatim]

Keep in mind that 120gb (b=bits) decimal is only 111 GB (B=Bytes) octal equivalent. Then you have to set aside 10-20% of space for the SSD to have room to do it's maintenance functios, such as trim and grabage collection, so your actual free space will be 90-100GB.

Depending on which products you actually install, you may not have sufficient room on this small of a drive. For example Office 2013 says a typical install is 1.5 to 3GB, most users see it eating 10x that much space. Photoshop installed size isn't bad but you also have to set aside scratch disk space as well as virtual memory space.

As for Cheap SSD's, yes some are actually slower then 7200rpms drives.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

120gb may fit a few of the programs and windows, but not all for sure.

I would not go below a 240gb drive for this use. Something like a Kingston A400 240gb is very cheap, decently reliable, and offers performance that will cream a hdd.

 

[Jason H.]

im planning to buy a cheap <language please> SSD as a boot drive. don't play popular high end games at PC that im gonna put the SSD on (im just gonna revive a slow <again> PC)
is 128gb enough for ms office and some few games like minecraft and dota 2 (planning, not decided yet).
im also planning download more programs like adobe photoshop (or freeware equivalent), and some simple video editing software

I mean when you get into editing videos and such, that takes up a lot of space. I wouldnt recommend anything under 250gb for what you will be doing and even then you may run out faster than you think.

You can get a Samsung 860 evo 250gb for about 60-70$ and its 1 of the best SSDs out for its price.

Windows will take up about 10-20gb on its own. Then if you have a System Paging File that will take up anywhere from 2-15gb of space.

You may want to mod minecraft and those files can start to add up fast.

Video rendering and Adobe, a 10min clip recorded of minecraft at 720p 30fps will be about 400-700mb, then when you render it you may add things to it and get a 1gb video. This adds up very quickly as well. Not to mention other programs you will inevitably get.

250gb is about the minimum, Id recommend a 500gb-1tb HDD as a storage drive for now if you cant afford a larger SSD and use the 250gb for Windows and your main programs and games.

Also have to think once a SSD becomes over half full its starts to drop in performance, which is where buying a better ssd like the 860 will help in the long term.

 

[Lil’bertz]

I mean when you get into editing videos and such, that takes up a lot of space. I wouldnt recommend anything under 250gb for what you will be doing and even then you may run out faster than you think.

nope im just gonna edit for school projects, not for youtube. aint got time for that crap

You may want to mod minecraft and those files can start to add up fast.

if my favorite mods are still being updated, i would have downloaded all of it immediatly but sadly only few are updated
i wont be adding mods in the future though. just optifine and jei

Video rendering and Adobe, a 10min clip recorded of minecraft at 720p 30fps will be about 400-700mb, then when you render it you may add things to it and get a 1gb video. This adds up very quickly as well. Not to mention other programs you will inevitably get.

im not gonna screen record my crappy minecraft gameplay lmao. like i said earlier im just gonna edit for school projects, not for youtube. so a maximum of 3 to 6 mins of video without any special effects will do just fine

but thank for the info about that 720p 30fps thing

 

[Jason H.]

nope im just gonna edit for school projects, not for youtube. aint got time for that crap



if my favorite mods are still being updated, i would have downloaded all of it immediatly but sadly only few are updated
i wont be adding mods in the future though. just optifine and jei



im not gonna screen record my crappy minecraft gameplay lmao. like i said earlier im just gonna edit for school projects, not for youtube. so a maximum of 3 to 6 mins of video without any special effects will do just fine

but thank for the info about that 720p 30fps thing

Oh thats fine I was just letting you know because you mentioned getting some video editing stuff.

But yea either way a 10min 720p video will be about 400-700mb.

Also I would still only recommend minimum 250gb.

 

[Lil’bertz]

120gb may fit a few of the programs and windows, but not all for sure.

I would not go below a 240gb drive for this use. Something like a Kingston A400 240gb is very cheap, decently reliable, and offers performance that will cream a hdd.

i was thinking of getting that ssd because its cheap along with wd green ssd(i heard bad things about this ssd) and silicon power a55.
also im thinking of getting a m.2 ssd too (either just sata or nvme ssd but nvme is an overkill for me at least) and put it in a adapter so in the future, im just gonna put that m.2 to my new pc but i can see that would be impractical.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

You're not going to be able to boot from an M.2 in a PCIE adapter on older PCs. The BIOS won't support this.

I like my A400

 

[USAFRet]

A 128GB drive is absolutely too small if it is the only drive.
It is marginally too small if there are other drives.

Price vs size strongly leans towards a 250GB or larger.
Reliability and longevity strongly leans to a 'not crappy' drive.

 

[Lil’bertz]

ok its decided that wont be getting a 128gb. please give a few ssd to choose from becuase some recommended ssds are not available in my country.

 

[USAFRet]

ok its decided that wont be getting a 128gb. please give a few ssd to choose from becuase some recommended ssds are not available in my country.

What IS available?
Samsung
Crucial
SanDisk

 

[NightHawkRMX]

What country? What websites do you have to chose from?

A Samsung 860 evo and Crucial mx500 are the go too drives, but not very cheap.

You can go for a kingston a400 or crucial bx500 for cheaper drives. I wouldn't go for a really cheap drive however.

 

[cryoburner]

Yeah, even among the inexpensive drives like the Kingston A400, I would go for at least the 240GB option at this point. Pricing might be different where you are, but the smaller 120-128GB drives tends to cost significantly more on a per-GB basis.

As for M.2 vs the 2.5" form factor, you probably won't have anything to gain by going M.2 on a drive that doesn't use the NVMe interface, since a SATA drive will still operate at SATA speeds even if it's M.2. I don't see desktop computers dropping support for drives connected via SATA cables anytime soon either, so your next computer will almost certainly support the drive.

What are your current system's specs? Since you were talking about possibly using an adapter, I suppose the motherboard doesn't have an M.2 slot?

 

[Lil’bertz]

What IS available?
Samsung
Crucial
SanDisk

samsung and sandisk are available
what model of sandisk?

 

[Lil’bertz]

What are your current system's specs? Since you were talking about possibly using an adapter, I suppose the motherboard doesn't have an M.2 slot?

yup thats right is an old motherboard
the pc im gonna revive is a 6th gen pentium with no gpu at all and a 4gb ram
the pc is for family use

 

[Lil’bertz]

What country? What websites do you have to chose from?

A Samsung 860 evo and Crucial mx500 are the go too drives, but not very cheap.

You can go for a kingston a400 or crucial bx500 for cheaper drives. I wouldn't go for a really cheap drive however.

philippines
i wouldn’t want to buy online because the prices are different from the physical stores
and just gonna revive a old system so a kingston a400 or the crucial bx 500 will do
if im gonna buy a ssd for my pc, then i would go for samsung no brainer

 

[USAFRet]

samsung and sandisk are available
what model of sandisk?

SanDisk Ultra 3D

And for a general family use PC, don't bother with any M.2 NVMe, especially if there is an adapter involved.

 

[Lil’bertz]

SanDisk Ultra 3D

And for a general family use PC, don't bother with any M.2 NVMe, especially if there is an adapter involved.

is WD Blue 3D NAND good too? since WD also owns Sandisk

 

[Jason H.]

samsung and sandisk are available
what model of sandisk?

I already told you your best option

The samsung 860 evo. Its about 60-70$ and it has very great read and write speeds. Which will be helpful when you inevitably fill up the SSD and it degrades in performance by doing so.

If you buy a cheaper ssd, later down the line when you only have 50gb left, it will be decently slower than the 860.

 

[cryoburner]

If you buy a cheaper ssd, later down the line when you only have 50gb left, it will be decently slower than the 860.

They want a cheap drive for an older system, and that drive is likely well beyond what they were planning on spending.

And before spending $60+ on a 250GB 860 Evo, I would spend a similar amount on a 500GB Crucial MX500 with similar performance and reliability, but double the capacity. Or around $75 on the 500GB 860 Evo. Again, we're seeing a case of the lowest capacities of that drive not being all that competitively priced.

 

[Lil’bertz]

I already told you your best option

The samsung 860 evo. Its about 60-70$ and it has very great read and write speeds. Which will be helpful when you inevitably fill up the SSD and it degrades in performance by doing so.

If you buy a cheaper ssd, later down the line when you only have 50gb left, it will be decently slower than the 860.

i know i just want more options just in case the samsung 860 isn’t available because i rarely see it on stock

and like i said on the other comments il would definitely buy the samsung if it was my own system not for the old pc 😀