Buying used SSDs only for game drive

[Jefez]

It's probably a general consensus by now that buying used storage devices should be avoided... but somehow buying new for a large SSD still feels too expensive for me.

A friend of mine once said "why not go the used path?" when I complained not having the storage for bigger games. Then I thought "That might be viable".

My question is: is it still worth it to buy used SSDs, even if it's only for a game drive? Or should I just stick to buying new ones?

I don't mind the risk of data loss if it's a drive only for games, I'd probably worry about it failing and then having to buy another one... but that's another story.

 

I'm currently aiming for a 480/512GB SATA models at the moment,

and the games that would be loaded onto the SSD are probably large multiplayer games (e-sports titles like Apex, CSGO, Valorant, also other large MP games like Genshin, Forza, and Payday) that would clearly benefit from SSD loading times.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

EDIT: Currently running a 120GB NVMe boot drive, 2TB 5400RPM for mass storage, and a 240GB SATA SSD just for games

Edited May 11, 2022 by Jefez
Putting additional information

[RONOTHAN##]

13 minutes ago, Jefez said:

is it still worth it to buy used SSDs, even if it's only for a game drive? Or should I just stick to buying new ones?

All but one drive I've bought used, including SSDs, has died within 3-6 months. Considering how many CHIA plotting drives are out there that are barely holding on to life, the risks are greater than they had been. I wouldn't say it's worth it and just stick to new stuff.

 

Also, why is it that you're only considering SSDs when you want more storage? Games launching on an SSD is only a couple seconds faster at most than most cheaper HDDs, even those. You can get a 4TB drive for $60 new, I don't see why unless you need a boot drive to go for a used SSD instead. 

[emosun]

11 minutes ago, Jefez said:

I don't mind the risk of data loss

oh yeah definitely get used then , pretty much everything goes out the window on used drives if you don't care what's on them

[emosun]

3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Games launching on an SSD is only a couple seconds faster at most than most cheaper HDDs.

Has to do with fetching assets , if a game is large enough then the entire game isn't loaded into ram which mean the drive will be bumping along a bit the whole game. Open world games that don't have loading screens between sections would be doing this. In which case an SSD would be your friend.

But yeah if the entire game loads into ram and doesn't need any other assets then a hdd would work fine.

[cat milker]

Even though u mentioned that you don't care about data loss, you will care when the drive fails 4 months later. I would suck it up and go with a new ssd. Trust me. i'll list a couple

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/zFK2FT/western-digital-blue-sn550-500-gb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-wds500g2b0c

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XshmP6/pny-cs900-500-gb-25-solid-state-drive-ssd7cs900-500-rb

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mRpmP6/samsung-870-evo-500-gb-25-solid-state-drive-mz-77e500bam

[Jefez]

37 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Also, why is it that you're only considering SSDs when you want more storage? Games launching on an SSD is only a couple seconds faster at most than most cheaper HDDs, even those. You can get a 4TB drive for $60 new, I don't see why unless you need a boot drive to go for a used SSD instead. 

Personally, it's more along the line of system stability (sometimes my system chugs hard just trying to load large games from my HDD), playability (Forza Horizon won't load the world fast enough when you're driving at high speeds) and just convenience (Genshin loads like a dream from SSDs; installed from a HDD before that, the load times were not a pleasant experience). 

 

Off-topic but related: I once disconnected from a CSGO match (installed in HDD), but it took so long to load back in--the game just randomly became unresponsive (Source being Source)--it costs me the match

 

I don't want just "more storage" per se, more of a "more storage but not too much of it, and the speed to go along with it" because it's only for games, if that makes sense

I'm currently not in the need to have plenty of storage, I just need some for my games, is all

25 minutes ago, cat milker said:

Even though u mentioned that you don't care about data loss, you will care when the drive fails 4 months later. I would suck it up and go with a new ssd.

Like I said, if it's for games only, I don't really care that much about the loss, tbh..  I could just download them again whenever needed. It's more the probability to buy another one when it does fail.

I get where you came from though, I guess I'll think about it more. Thanks!