Solid state drive for gaming? Not worth it.

I was considering getting a 1TB ssd for 300 bucks, and after careful consideration i realized it's not worth it. Now that most AAA games nowadays require 80GB, how many games i will be able to install on it? 11. When my Steam library of 400 games would require much more than that.

The advantages are very few, the cost / value of ssd drives is abysmal. In order to safely clone my OS to an ssd, it would require 2 TB of ssd. I checked the cost. 800 fucking dollars.

Yes, the tests of ssd performance look yummy. But in reality, i didnt see much improvement over hdd, considering i can wait extra 10-20 seconds of loading times.

But in practice, these performance tests are bullshit as they don't mention that those loading times are only when you load games for the first time. Consequent loading screens are much shorter afterwords.

I agree, totally not worth it at this point.

Nah, they're pretty great

I disagree, the difference it makes in load and startup times is often night and day.

what i do personally, is put the games I'm currently playing a lot of on my SSDs, and move the games I might only play once in a while to my regular HDD. its not like you need your entire steam library installed at once.

I built a small form factor PC and really struggled with SSDs. I really wanted to use a m.2 because I had never used one before, but the performance over a 850 evo in gaming is basically nothing. So I went with a smaller 950 M.2 for the OS and a larger 850 for game storage. It really didn’t save me any money either. SSDs are still in a strange spot price for capacity wise. At least they are better than RAM right now.

@with_teeth26: Honestly, i didn't see that. Most games that have long loading times usually have zero loading screen afterwards. So i am ok to wait a bit longer for the first time. And games that have many loading screens even on my hdd are just a second long. For gaming, a modern hdd 7200Rpm with 128mb of cache has completely acceptable performance. Most my games have average loading time of 10-15 seconds.

Do a half way solution, place the games with big load times on ssd, rest on hdd

I got 1tb samsung 850 for 280e back in january and have since removed hdd's from my gaming pc. Dont need all the games installed with good Internet speed

As someone who has three SSD's(240gb,250gb, 1tb ) and a 2tb Hybrid drive. while most games you can get away with a good 7200 rpm harddrive. Certain games need the speed of SSD's. Like Bethesda or DICE games. for example Battlefield 1 load times go from like 2 minutes and change down to 50 some seconds, a huge improvement. Also Some games that like to thrash drives by streaming level data in cells like say GTA, a SSD can prevent load hitching while playing.

Right now you can pick up a 1tb samsung 850evo on newegg for S270 with rebate. earlier this year before the memory price spikes you could grab a 1tb SSD for abit above $200. Now with a hybrid drive to see the performance of a SSD you have to run the same thing a few times before the 8gb buffer will throw the most used data to SSD part. It can reduce load times but not as good as a normal SSD.

If I was you TC I would grab a 250-500gb SSD for OS and a few select games that need the speed you will be fine.

I just use a 3TB 7200 for my games and another 3TB for my media. I only run my OS off an SSD, which is wonderful. I don't even bother with updating HDD's for my consoles.

I don't like waiting while loading and I don't like hitching or stuttering when streaming on the fly. So, I run all my games from SSDs. I have two 1TB SSDs just for games.

I only have one 1TB SSD that's only use for games I have install only. SSD are freaking awesome and I also have one on my PS4.

There expensive yes, but it's a hell lot faster seeing your games load and get right into the action.

Load times on my HDD are like 5 seconds for most games anyway, so I really don't see any use in spending hundreds of dollars for a small amount of space.

Installing OS on an SSD is a must though.

All my games run incredibly well from my WD Black HDD. Don't get the obsession with SSDs for everything.

SSDs are great for the os and all the applications which is what I use it for, but for running games on it isn't that beneficial to be worth the cost considering how well a performance HDD will run them while being cheaper. Consoles have been getting by with 5400 RPM HDDs over sata 2 up until now.

The loading times are nice, that's about it. still valuable imo.

I only have SSDs now, but at the cost of only having 1TB.

1 x 250 for the OS

1 x 250 for "Tier 1 games"

1 x 500 GB for Virtual Labs/Machines/ISOs etc.

SSDs are a godsend for Virtual machines... would not go back ever.

I have a 960 evo m.2 250GB just for my OS and all my other apps such as my adobe monthly service I have to pay for now (I hate that). I then put my more demanding games on my 850 Evos (500GB). I have 3 of these as I bought them last year when I ran into them for ~$105 each. I have 2 3TB 7200 HDD that holds my mass storage. I have a few older games that I keep on there.

I generally uninstall games from my SSD once I beat them or know I won't play them anymore.

That is what I do. That and the OS.

That's what I do. No need to install ALL of your games on your SSD, but if you think the game will benefit from an SSD, and the install size isn't too crazy, I don't think it's such a bad idea.

Why do you need to install all of your games at once?

Will never have a computer that doesn't use a SSD drive for OS and games. I use mehanical drives for backups only and to archive stuff. That is all mechanical drives are good for now.

I switched over to a usb 3.0 4tb hd for my games. With usb 3.0 the load times are fast as hell and this way my ssd only has Windows running on it and stays nice and free, fast, and healthy.

I don't. But with all recent AAA I purchased this year, my 4 TB hdd filled up quite quickly. I have probably only 50 games installed at the moment, but it's more than enough. And i don't like to uninstall game because it's such a hassle to redownload 40-80GB games again. SSD capacity can't catch up with games space size requirements nowadays.

It will be worth it when the prices drop

I moved to only SSDs a few years ago, it's definitely a lot better than when I used HDDs.

Downloading games isn't much of a hassle for me either. My internet speed is around 920 Mb/s (115 MB/s) down and I have unlimited usage. So downloads are extremely fast and, when you're using a PCIe NVMe SSD, the install time is also very quick.

The load times are supposed to be worth it. I've never used a SSD before, but I can see some of the bigger open-world games really benefiting from the faster load times.

And anyone who is installing 400 games from their Steam library doesn't have time to play them all. Back them up to a traditional portable HDD and move the game files back and forth when you need them. It's what I do and I have a 1TB HDD in my laptop.

I completely disagree. I also don't agree that you need to have all your games installed at the same time. I basically disagree with everything in your post.

Only place for an HDD is the server. Even the thought of having spinning discs of any kind in my computer just irks me. What is this? 2007?

I have two SSDs in my computer. One is use for OS and applications and the other I use for games that I play very often and/or games with long load times. It is worth it for that.

Everything else goes on hard drives.

Yeah if you game on PC they are definitely worth it. WoW load times were reduced drastically for me.

For most games, eh. But some games like Total War Warhammer are bloody painful without an SSD.

I disagree, SSDs make a huge difference. Sure the impact is much bigger on stuff like the OS, but I also put the games I play most on the SDD.

depends entirely on the game. i can tell you that playing an MMO these days on an HDD is suffering. an SSD is pretty much mandatory.

This is the way to go.

Huge upgrade... don't build a pc and cheap out on the system drive or monitor.

Why don't you have a smaller drive say a 250 or 500GB drive paired with a normal HDD then simply move games you are finished with to the HDD and back again when you want to play them...

That's not how any of this works.

How is your OS 2tb big? did you install 40 different linux versions? I got the feeling you don't understand much about computers if your OS drive is 2tb big.

If you don't see much improvement over a HDD with a SSD in games or windows OS, you clearly never ever used one. The difference is day and night. For long loading times / stutter loading mess to silky smooth performance. There is a reason why people want SSD's and faster ones at that.

Games load data in from your harddrive constantly, good luck playing ashes of singularity and black desert online ( tier 8 horse running ) without a SSD, your performance will be abysmall, and you will be frustrated to no end if you are used towards a SSD.

There is nothing bullshit performance wise about SSD's. And anybody that uses them know this.

Also your game management is completely off the chart if you install 11 80gb full blown games towards a SSD. You clearly have no idea how to manage games on it.

SSD is not there to be a data dumpster, its there to speed your main processes up and used for those. If you play for example. game 1, and game 2. and have 10 games. You put game 1 and 2 on your SSD and put the other 8 games on your harddrive.

Once you are done with game 1 or 2 and start to play game 3 more on your harddrive, you switch them around.

You only really need place for 2-3 full blown high end retail games, so a 512gb ssd will be far enough for your needs.

So basically your whole reaction doesn't make a lot of sense to somebody that owns ssd's.

I play Warframe on SSD with 4-5secs load time. With HDD, it's around 15.

Not worth it for consoles, but PC definitely benefits.

Use SSD as boot drive and for multiplayer focused games

I couldn't disagree more. I have a 250 boot drive, and 1tb game drive. My 2 4gb hdds are for my media content, and the 8gb hdd is for backup.

I know it cost a bit more than some want to pay, but man, getting into games is so much better.

For example, I play total war with my kid, who has his game on hdd. I'm CONSTANTLY waiting, sometimes over a minute of real time, for him to load into custom battles, or whatever else.

It may not make a huge difference on some games, but on a LOT of games it saves huge amounts of time. Whenever I play games with splash screens containing tips though, I barely get to read the tips, if at all. So that's kind of a bummer. But not really.

Sorry, but you are wrong because it is totally worth it. You can get a 2TB Crucial MX300 for $529 or a 2TB Mushkin Reactor for the same price- both are great SSDs. If the price for a 2TB SSD is out of your price range, you can just get a 1TB and put the games that you play regularly on it. One of the biggest benefits is faster boot / shut down times, faster file copying and of course in games; MUCH faster load times. With my SSD it takes me 4 seconds to get to the desktop from a cold boot which is pretty crazy. Again, if SSDs are out of your price range, go with an SSHD Hybrid drive. You can get a 2TB 3.5'' Seagate FireCuda for $99 and even though it isn't as fast as a normal SSD, they are much faster than regular spinners. Old school spinning drives have been made obsolete by SSDs and SSHDs and if you are still using them in 2017 then you are in the wrong. I use to be like you and I thought that I didn't need an SSD, but when I finally got one it was night and day.

Yeah, they are really only worth it if you have the money to spare. They are artificially slimming the market, I believe; they are working on releasing 10 TB SSDs, yet they still charge 150+ for a 500 GB SSD and they are available everywhere. Bunch of bastards.

I have one 500 GB Samsung 850 evo, and I'm not going to bother buying another until they hit at least 1 TB for under 100 bucks.

I'll just use my 4 TB SSHD and 3 TB HDD for games for now.

Got about 30 games installed on my PC most of them are on my 3Tb HDD (large cheap storage). I have my O/S running from a Samsung Evo 250Gb SSD and some games (Star Citizen, Battlefield 1 and 4 and Total War Warhammer II) installed on my Samsung Pro 512Gb M.2 SSD.

SSD's are worth it, especially as a boot drive. As for games, you just need to learn what will gain an advantage from being installed on one and what wouldn't.

For OS load times it's night and day. On the games side it depends on the game. The vast majority of games will load fast enough on HDD and just give you marginal faster loading on an SSD. But some games are a loading nightmare on HDD and an SSD is basically a must. Also don't be so obsessed about having X amount of games installed on your drive since most probably you will only play like 2-3 or such at a time. Simply move them back and from an HDD, and as I said investigate or test for yourself what games truly benefit from an SSD.

Not a fan of them. Too expensive for the little they do

A solid state drive is worth it for pretty much everything as they are superior in every way and don't cost much at all.

Would never go back.

@ivangrozny:

The difficulty settings I usually play games on often results in many deaths at first, and a lot of reloads. They add up pretty fast.

At first glance I figured somebody bumped an ancient ass necro thread.

SSDs are absolutely worth it these days.

I'm running a 1TB SSD as my primary drive. My primary games will go on here. I also have a 3TB HDD as my secondary which any game I've already completed; get tossed in this drive.

Your supposed to install windows on the SSD and the games you play most. You have a second HDD to store your junk everyone pretty much does this. Steam even has the option to move a game across to another storage. That's why you see people with small SSD space.