M.2 vs Sata SSD vs HDD for game library storage

Link_7802

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Dec 31, 2016
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so i was thinking of upgrading away from HDDs. i was looking at a few drives and have my sights set on a Samsung 960 Evo 250gb for an OS drive and a 500gb for game storage. but i was wondering, do i really need a blazing fast M.2 SSD for just game storage?? would i see any benefits of having an M.2 over a much cheaper high performance Sata SSD?? and if not, would i see a performance difference out of the Sata SSD over a high performance and reliable 1-2tb HDD?

*am keeping the Samsung 960 Evo for an OS/Main Drive, just curious if i will see any gain out of having one for just game storage over a Sata SSD or HDD
 
Solution
You would not see any performance gain with an NVMe drive vs a SATA III SSD.
SATA III SSD vs HDD, you will see faster level loading times.

With either, no gain in FPS.

Link_7802

Commendable
Dec 31, 2016
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Thank you, i knew it would improve performance as the OS drive, i just wasnt for sure on the NVME vs Sata part for just game storage. You may have just saved me a good $100 :)
 

Dugimodo

Distinguished
For games you get faster launch and level load times and that's about it for most of them. Some games benefit from fast storage more than others but in general gameplay is not normally affected.

I use an M.2 850 Evo as an OS drive and a 500gb 2.5" Crucial SSD for my steam library. They are starting to get full so I have started moving some of my less played games to an ordinary drive and find you generally don't notice the difference. Mainly they just take a few seconds longer to start.

I do think large open world games like fallout 4, Skyrim and WoW benefit from being on an SSD because they access the drive a lot more often.