Questions on hard drive setups and video

[topgun505]

So I am in the process of building a new pc.  I tend to build a pc and use it for 6 years (doing only slight upgrades during that time as needed) and then build a completely new machine.  I’m thinking about going with a Z270 chipset-based motherboard in order to utilize the Smart Response technology where the hard drive can utilize a SSD drive to act as a large cache.  But I have some questions regarding it:

Which would be better.  Going with a good SATA III standard hard drive and a SSD using the Smart Response technology to use it as a cache?  Or have SSD’s advanced to the point where it would just be better to use a SSD as the main operating system drive? 

If it would be best to use a SSD, would there be any performance benefits on using a second SSD to use it as a cache via the Smart Response technology …. or would that be irrelevant? 

I didn’t know if gate failures still occurred on SSDs or not and, if they did, how long would a typical SSD last before it started suffering from this.  The main concern being that Windows is always constantly reading and writing to the main hard drive so with all that constant activity it would wear out a SSD before the end of the typical time frame where I built a new pc (5-6 years).  I don’t want to have to rebuild/replace the main op-sys drive during that time. 

If using a SSD drive for the Smart Response technology is a good idea … what format drive would be best?  I’m assuming something that plugs directly into the board i.e. M2 would be best?  Or would a typical SATA III interface be not too much different? 

Last set of questions.  I currently have a single 1080p monitor on the system.  I do eventually intend to move to a triple monitor setup.  Would a single 1070-series nvidia card be enough to drive 3 monitors at 1080p or would a SLI setup be required?  How about three 4k resolution monitors?  If a SLI setup is required … what approximate wattage power supply should I be looking at for the system (assuming a mid-range Core i7 system)?

 

[InvalidError]

If you use an SSD large enough to hold your OS and frequently used software, then SRT becomes largely redundant and unnecessary.

As for the performance difference between NVMe and SATA, there isn't a huge difference between the two outside synthetic benchmarks and workloads with unusually heavy IO requirements. For most everyday stuff, performance is ultimately limited by the processing most software and games do on the data they've loaded between IO batches.

 

[topgun505]

Are SSDs viable for an operating system drive at this point (working on the assumption it needs yo be able to last for 5-6 years)?

 

[InvalidError]

As long as the drive is large enough for write leveling to be effective and that you have enough RAM to avoid continuous swapping which would cause greatly accelerated wear (and unbearable performance degradation with HDDs), SSD lifespan shouldn't be an issue.