nvme ssd is it okay to do simultaneous game downloads/updates on a NVME SSD?

ImANoob · September 25, 2022

I have a 4TB NVME SSD, which I use for storing games from Steam, Epic Games, Origin, Blizzard, etc. I don't store the Windows OS on it, that's on a separate drive.

Since I play the most popular multiplayer games right now (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Apex, Fortnite, etc.), there are almost daily updates that happen on this drive. Sometimes, multiple game updates are available at the same time, from multiple launchers. I usually perform daily updates on my games, so that I'm ready to play any time I want to, without having to wait for the download/install to happen for that game.

I currently open these launchers in sequence, so that only one game update happens at a time. This is mostly a habit from my old HDD days, to prevent multiple parallel writes on the disk.

I want to speed up game downloads/installs by opening all game launchers at once.

I understand I will still be limited by the internet speed, CPU, single game download/install per launcher, SSD speed, etc., but ignoring all these factors, will multiple simultaneous game updates:

1. Adversely affect the life of the NVME SSD?

2. Adversely affect the future file read/write performance on the NVME SSD, since multiple files from multiple games will be split-up and spread across the drive (due to parallel downloads)?

Thanks!

TylerD321 · September 25, 2022

I update everything at once and I’ve not had an issue yet. I have 2 1tb Intel 660 nvme drives. I have os and battle.net on my main drive and then steam on its own drive. I’ve updated windows, steam games, battle.net games, and games on epic launcher all at once. I think you’d be fine.

Most likely your drive would be writing at its Max rated speed regardless of whether or not you update one thing or several at once.

mariushm · September 25, 2022

The SSD is not aware of the type of content you put on it. For the SSD and the SSD controller, it's just commands "put these KB or MB somewhere, read those KB or MB from there" - the SSD controller doesn't care, it simply does as it's asked, either reading data from chips or writes and spreads the writes across the flash memory chips and flash memory chip layers to keep the wear as even as possible.

Doesn't matter if you write 1 MB/s to it, or 1 GB/s to it, it works the same ...

With mechanical drives, it used to matter how you write, because there was a direct relation between where you put the data and how fast it's read. On mechanical drives, the data is arranged in round tracks that go from the inner edge (smaller) of the platter, to the outer edge of the platter. Also, mechanical hard drives have read/write heads that must be moved above a track, and then the platter has to rotate until the data you want goes under the read/write heads, and then the hard drive basically reads one or more of those tracks (because the platter spins so fast) and puts that data in its 64-256 MB cache and gives you just the data you want.

So when you install a game on a mechanical drive, you want the files to be as much as possible all in one place, and as little fragmented as possible. For example, let's say the game has 10 4 GB files which contain textures, sounds and all that, and you load a game level ... the game would want to read a few hundred megabytes from a 4 GB file, and it's best for the file to be one big chunk on the mechanical drive, consecutive tracks on the platter. This way, it takes some time for the heads to position above the first track, a tiny bit for the platter to spin to put the data under the head, but after that the data is read track after track with very little movement required from the heads, so you get fast reads.

If the file is fragmented into lots of pieces, then the read heads would have to constantly move around to various tracks on the platter, wait for platter to spin and get data under the track, read a portion of the track, give you the data, then move quickly to another track where the next fragment of the big file is.

When you install games on a mechanical drive, the installer tells the operating system "I'm planning to create a 4 GB file" and the file system drivers will look and try to find an area on the drive with lots of empty space, to minimize the risk of fragmenting the file, and says "ok, you can start writing your file at position xyz" like let's say 1200 MB from the start

But if you install other games at the same time, another download may request to reserve 4 GB and the file system may say "ok you can start from 3000 MB" which overlaps the 1200-5200 area previously reserved for the 4 GB file of the other game - the file system driver has little memory and has no way of knowing how fast those 4 GB will be written, and can't keep those 4 GB reserved forever.

So on mechanical drives you can get fragmentation of files ... you can use a defragmentation tool afterwards to defragment the games and make them be read faster.

SSDs don't keep the data in concentric tracks, and the data is not kept in fixed positions .. the data is constantly moved around as needed to keep the wear on the flash memory chips as even as possible across all memory chips and layers of chips.

There's also no concept of continuous anything ... even if the operating system or file system drivers say i want to reserve area 1200-5200 , the SSD will just say ok, and still do what it wants to do, will actually spread the data as much as possible, so that it's read from multiple chips and multiple layers at the same time (to get higher read speeds)