Two small SSDs or one big SSD

[Pwigy4]

I have designed a gaming system to work for all the games that I would play, the only issue for me is storage. I'm looking at installing Windows 10 and using it solely as a gaming PC so very few programs aside from Steam and the like.

I don't think I will be using that much storage space for my games but I would like a minimum of 120ish gigs but I doubt I'll be using more than 250.

~ One question I have is about how big an SSD will I need to install Windows 10 and the few desired programs I need, need to be?

~ Is it better to get one appropriately sized disk for my OS+Programs, and another slightly larger SSD [120-250gig] for my game storage ~OR~ get one SSD that has enough capacity to hold all of my OS, programs, and games in that one SSD.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Getting a single big SSD would be more cost efficient, and as for how much you need, it depends. For just the OS and a few programs (Steam, web browser etc.) you can easily just have a 120GB one. However some games like The Witcher 3, Fallout 4 and GTA V have horrendous load times on HDD and at the same time take up quite a bit of storage space, so really if you'll be playing such games I recommend you get a 480GB SSD.

 

[natcha12]

Getting a single big SSD would be more cost efficient, and as for how much you need, it depends. For just the OS and a few programs (Steam, web browser etc.) you can easily just have a 120GB one. However some games like The Witcher 3, Fallout 4 and GTA V have horrendous load times on HDD and at the same time take up quite a bit of storage space, so really if you'll be playing such games I recommend you get a 480GB SSD.

Yes, and to put it into numbers, in the UK 850 evo 250gb is around £60-70, and the 500gb about £110. Much more cost efficient.

Although saying that, I personally use a 500gb performance ssd for my games and a mainstream one only 120gb for os and other programs.

 

[techgeek]

Windows itself will be like 28GB. Most modern games are pretty big. COD Ghosts is 33.5GB alone. COD:AW is over 50GB. So if you have a 250GB drive, you may only get like 5 or 6 games on it and it will be full. Of course this is game dependent.

That said, I never advise to fill a SSD over 75%. The write performance will tank if you start using much more space than this.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Not 75%, it's more like 90% (unless you get an NVMe SSD).

 

[techgeek]

All the benchmarks I've seen show that around 75% (some lower) write speeds start slowing down. If Windows is given a chance to garbage collect and TRIM, then speeds will return until it needs garbage collection and TRIM again.