HDD help!

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Joined
28 Feb 2009
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590
Okay,

So I am speccing a new gaming PC build and I have a few Q's regarding SSDs...

1. is it better to install games on SSD or a traditional HDD?
2. Should I go SATA SSD or M.2 SSD? I'm thinking something like a Samsung 850 EVO versus something like Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe NVMEe SSD. Spec-wise it appears the M.2 drive in 256 GB guise has twice the write/4x the read speed!
3. I've read somewhere (Internet land, so it must be true!) that M.2 drives can't be used as boot drives?

Regardless of the above, I'm thinking a 250 GB SSD for OS/boot and a 1TB (or even 2 TB) for storage/other games etc - is this a prudent way to go?

Should I bother with stuff like Raid (e.g. get 2x 1TB HDDs etc)?
 
The high speed m2 ssd are much more expensive. I specced a sata 3 ssd for my recent build and I'm in windows in less than 10 seconds from boot, plenty fast enough for me. You can boot from m.2 on modern systems.

I would think you'll need a 2nd drive for games and storage if your speccing a smallish ssd. It's cheaper to use a conventional hdd than an ssd, all depends what budget you have.
 
I am not sure if it would - the motherboard I am planning on going for is the MSI Z170A Sli with the Intel Z170 Chipset. It has an M.2 socket.

As a left-field option, I am considering either getting a single large SSD for everything (with the option to buy a normal HDD later should I need it, which I won't as my data needs are low), or a small SSD for OS and a larger SSD for games/apps. Is there much advantage of 2x SSDs vs one large SSD?
 
That motherboard is modern and will support booting from m.2

If you can afford it I'd go for one large ssd. Don't think there is any advantage to having os on a separate drive any more - the main reason for doing it was speed I think which isn't a problem now.
 
I like to keep things seperate, which is why I use a 512GB SDD (Split into two for a dualboot) for the OS & Apps\Docs and a 1TB SSD for games. I use a spinning disk for storage and as a scratch drive too.

For most people though, a single SSD will be fine these days. 1TB drives aren't too expensive now.
 
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