Question Should I have a Host Memory Buffer Drive as Boot Drive ?

[bikemanI7]

Hello

I bought the following in December 2024:

Samsung 990 Evo Plus 1TB HMB Drive and made it the boot drive for Windows 11 Pro and made Samsung 990 Pro 1TB as a Game Drive. I originally wanted to get 2 x Western Digital drives but funds wouldn't stretch to two of those so I decided to go with this setup.

Eventually I will upgrade to a larger Game M.2--2TB Mininum, and put this 1TB into a future replacement gaming laptop or something.

 

[Lutfij]

Technically, you're good as is. Out of curiosity what is the make and model of your motherboard and the processor paired with it? Please include them in your thread's body as sig space specs can and will change over time and render this thread moot to the user in the same boat as you're in now.

I usually tend to have the OS on a small capacity SSD akin to 500GB(any smaller and the price difference is moot) as you don't need much space for the OS, launchers and app's. The speed doesn't matter as long as you're on an NVMe drive for the OS. The speed of an SSD matters when you have to deal with games that need to load a lot of objects/files. You can't tell the difference with a PCIe3.0 and 4.0 drive when it comes to the OS/app's alone.

 

[alceryes]

Hello

I bought the following in December 2024:

Samsung 990 Evo Plus 1TB HMB Drive and made it the boot drive for Windows 11 Pro and made Samsung 990 Pro 1TB as a Game Drive. I originally wanted to get 2 x Western Digital drives but funds wouldn't stretch to two of those so I decided to go with this setup.

Eventually I will upgrade to a larger Game M.2--2TB Mininum, and put this 1TB into a future replacement gaming laptop or something.

HMB NVMe drives are generally, slightly slower overall with small data bursts. Slightly is the keyword here, though. We're talking very small fractions of a second.

A quick read on HBM NVMe drives - https://www.pcworld.com/article/784...vme-technology-thats-making-ssds-cheaper.html

 

[bikemanI7]

PC Specs
Motherboard is MSI Pro B650 VC WiFi Rev 1.0
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
GPU: Radeon 7800XT OC 16GB
PSU: High Power 750w (I plan to upgrade it as soon as can)
Case: Lian Li Lancool 216 ARGB
1TB Samsung 990 Evo Plus NVMe SSD (Boot Drive)
1TB Samsung 990 Pro 1TB NVMe SSD (Games)
1TB Samsung 860 Evo SATA SSD (Extra Storage)


I didn't know if system would even accept the old M.2 Boot SSD from my old PC.
That was a PCie 3.0 500GB NVMe Samsung 970 Evo Plus.
So at Christmas I probably spent more than I needed to.

**Old PC has been off since July 2024 as Family member i was gonna give it to said didn't want it due to having Tempered glass side panel for the case, and also didn't fit in other household desk, still may get a newer tower at some point and transfer the components, So i don't even know if the old M.2 NVMe even still works. ***

Overall very happy with system, but just one game that is still slow to load up for some reason it seems, and that is Battlefield 2042

I did keep the Integrated graphics enabled as it was enabled by default when I first setup the system back in July. I'm not sure if that affects game loading time or not ?