SSD Question

[webguy]

Hi.  I am building a new pc and I have a few questions about ssd storage.  I have been reading posts here for a while and it seems like it is the general recommendation to get at least a small ssd for windows and then a bigger sata drive for regular storage.  My question is how big of a drive do you need for windows 10 professional?  Would it make sense to get a second ssd that is about 1tb or so to store games I play often on it?  How much would that benefit the performance of the computer to do that?  Is the difference something you can tell?  Would it be better to just get one ssd and put windows and the games on it on the same drive or is there a benefit to doing windows on one ssd and games and programs I use often on a different ssd then store video files and stuff like that on a sata drive?

 

Thanks!

[ddennis002]

For simplicity and speed 1TB NVME or SATA SSD would be the best choice. As the prices of these drives have drop significantly and you don't need any more than 1TB. You could get a 1TB HDD for backups and Windows Image so if you ever need to reinstall you have a good starting point. 

[Jurrunio]

Split drives because it's sometimes cheaper per GB to do so, also for file management. Atm 500GB and 1TB ones are the best value. Doesnt really affect performance no matter you split or not.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

16 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Split drives because it's sometimes cheaper per GB to do so, also for file management. Atm 500GB and 1TB ones are the best value. Doesnt really affect performance no matter you split or not.

I can see using multiple drives to cut costs per unit of drive capacity and also when one needs more capacity than availble drives can deliver, such as using two 4TB SSDs when needing 8TB of capacity.

 

The only time I ever advocate using multiple drives (or partitions on the drive of a single drive machine) for file mangagement is to segregate the system files (OS and programs) from data files (documents, music, videos, pictures, etc.) which will vastly simplify and speed up maintaining backups.

 

Using multiple partitions or smaller for file organization is an inefficient use of available capacity. Using folders is far more efficient.

[Tristerin]

Go for SSD storage.  

[Jurrunio]

3 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

The only time I ever advocate using multiple drives (or partitions on the drive of a single drive machine) for file mangagement is to segregate the system files (OS and programs) from data files (documents, music, videos, pictures, etc.) which will vastly simplify and speed up maintaining backups.

 

Using multiple partitions or smaller for file organization is an inefficient use of available capacity. Using folders is far more efficient.

Not exactly, having a separate OS partition, risky software partition and proper genuine software partition is useful. When you need to wipe your PC because a virus or malware got in, you only need to clean up one or two partitions instead of everything.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

8 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Not exactly, having a separate OS partition, risky software partition and proper genuine software partition is useful. When you need to wipe your PC because a virus or malware got in, you only need to clean up one or two partitions instead of everything.

As long as you have proper backups and security software (and don't surf like an isiot), not having a smaller volume to clean up will be a concern far less than the extra time and work associated with updating backups. I've never had to clean up" an entire drive or partition due to a virus or malware infection side I first started using Win 7 (it happend once when I was still on XP, mostly due to my own stupidity, which I managed to learn from). Een if a large volume had to be cleaned up, a simple restore from a backup is easy and takes little time (literally, less than a handful of minutes) to start. Then you can sit back, watch TV, got to bed, whatever, until the computer finishes doing its thing. The time you save updating bakups will be far greater than any extra time spent cleaning something up due to a larger volume.

[Jurrunio]

2 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

As long as you have proper backups and security software (and don't surf like an isiot), not having a smaller volume to clean up will be a concern far less than the extra time and work associated with updating backups. I've never had to clean up" an entire drive or partition due to a virus or malware infection side I first started using Win 7 (it happend once when I was still on XP, mostly due to my own stupidity, which I managed to learn from). Een if a large volume had to be cleaned up, a simple restore from a backup is easy and takes little time (literally, less than a handful of minutes) to start. Then you can sit back, watch TV, got to bed, whatever, until the computer finishes doing its thing. The time you save updating bakups will be far greater than any extra time spent cleaning something up due to a larger volume.

only making backups for a smaller OS partition is also faster (and the restore process too)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

only making backups for a smaller OS partition is also faster (and the restore process too)

Not if you are using the correct software for backing up data only, which is the reason for segregating system files from data files. System files are best backed up by imaging; in fact imaging and cloning are the only way to backup system files. However, imaging (and cloning) is too slow and bulky for backing up data only files. Folder/file syncing in mirror mode (not the same as RAID 1) is more suitable for backing up data only files. Once the intial backup has been made, updating the backups takes much less time, often only a few minutes, since only files that have been added, changed or deleted are involved in the process. On top of that, the better folder/file syncing programs have a feature called Versioning which, when activated, will also protect against data loss due to accidental deletion.

[webguy]

Thank you everyone for the information.  Do you recommend using ssd for games?  Is there any benefit to that?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 hours ago, webguy said:

Thank you everyone for the information.  Do you recommend using ssd for games?  Is there any benefit to that?

It depends on what youn expect from the SSD. If a game has to frequently load modules from the drive, then an SSD will speed that up. Otherwise, once the game is booted, you will not see any increase in game speed.