Safe to store games on SSD?

[Alda14]

So I've heard that installing games onto an SSD will shorten its life or it will harm the SSD due to so many read/writes or something like that, especially bigger more demanding games. Is this true? Because right now I have a 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO as the boot drive and a one terabyte HDD with everything else including my games on it. The load times of steam and my games has increased a lot since adding more and more games. Is it safe to have all of my games and steam on the SSD? 

[Garett1]

well if too many read/writes damages a ssd than whats the point in having it lol?

No, games on an ssd are just fine. My friend has nothing but ssd's in his gaming PC and he's had them for 3 years! 

[vong]

2 minutes ago, Alda14 said:

So I've heard that installing games onto an SSD will shorten its life or it will harm the SSD due to so many read/writes or something like that, especially bigger more demanding games. Is this true? Because right now I have a 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO as the boot drive and a one terabyte HDD with everything else including my games on it. The load times of steam and my games has increased a lot since adding more and more games. Is it safe to have all of my games and steam on the SSD? 

I've had a 750GB 850 EVO full of games for the last 4 years with no problem..

[Stardar1]

1 minute ago, Alda14 said:

So I've heard that installing games onto an SSD will shorten its life or it will harm the SSD due to so many read/writes or something like that, especially bigger more demanding games. Is this true? Because right now I have a 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO as the boot drive and a one terabyte HDD with everything else including my games on it. The load times of steam and my games has increased a lot since adding more and more games. Is it safe to have all of my games and steam on the SSD? 

SSDs last a long time, and are meant to have lots of read/writes to them (otherwise what would be the point of a drive that fast?)

 

SSDs failure rate scales off of total read/writes rather than time, but that doesnt mean you have to be super careful. 

 

http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead This report is old. but it shows the shear amount of shit an SSD will take before it falls over dead. 

 

TL;DR: Games on SSDs are fine. 

[The Sloth]

3 minutes ago, Alda14 said:

So I've heard that installing games onto an SSD will shorten its life or it will harm the SSD due to so many read/writes or something like that, especially bigger more demanding games. Is this true? Because right now I have a 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO as the boot drive and a one terabyte HDD with everything else including my games on it. The load times of steam and my games has increased a lot since adding more and more games. Is it safe to have all of my games and steam on the SSD? 

 

yes its safe long as you don't use the SSD for  over 10 years or so. modern ssd have evolved for general purpose use.

[Katsunaka]

Steam can be installed on drive with the OS. The games can be stored in an SSD without issue.

 

Ive got my 950 pro for os, 850 evo for games, and a regular hdd that only gets installed when I back up my os. 

 

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, Garett1 said:

well if too many read/writes damages a ssd than whats the point in having it lol?

 

Well, writes will eventually kill an SSD. They can be read from really as much as you want, but they have a limited amount of write cycles. 

 

That said, installing games on SSDs will not kill them quickly. We're talking Petabytes of writes to kill an SSD, that would take a very long time with a game. 

[Alda14]

1 hour ago, Katsunaka said:

Steam can be installed on drive with the OS. The games can be stored in an SSD without issue.

 

Ive got my 950 pro for os, 850 evo for games, and a regular hdd that only gets installed when I back up my os. 

 

 

Ok well i only have my OS and spotify on my SSD (boot drive), will having steam and the games on the SSD along with the OS increase boot time?

[Katsunaka]

59 minutes ago, Alda14 said:

Ok well i only have my OS and spotify on my SSD (boot drive), will having steam and the games on the SSD along with the OS increase boot time?

 

No, but id probably recommend picking up a 500gb SSD for games. 256 is good for your OS but you'll need more for games. 

 

Just keep using your hard drive until you get a 500gb or better for just games only.

 

Then use your 1tb hard drive for backing your OS, and any pictures/videos you want to keep. 

 

Only reason im saying a separate ssd for games is because youll run out of space on that 256gb using it for everything. 

 

Gta 5 for example is nearly a 70gb install. Thats almost 25% of your 256gb ssd for 1 game. 

A 500gb would allow you to have enough games installed without installing and unistalling one or more to make room.

[Gronnie]

1 hour ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Well, writes will eventually kill an SSD. They can be read from really as much as you want, but they have a limited amount of write cycles. 

 

That said, installing games on SSDs will not kill them quickly. We're talking Petabytes of writes to kill an SSD, that would take a very long time with a game. 

Regarding being able to read as much as you want... that is only partly true. Their is a phenomena called "read disturb" that any good SSD firmware will account for and will move valid data after many reads.

 

I definitely wouldn't worry about lifespan due to games though, that's what an SSD is for! There will be something better and cheaper you will want to upgrade to likely well before the SSD has been wore out.

[Alda14]

19 hours ago, Katsunaka said:

 

No, but id probably recommend picking up a 500gb SSD for games. 256 is good for your OS but you'll need more for games. 

 

Just keep using your hard drive until you get a 500gb or better for just games only.

 

Then use your 1tb hard drive for backing your OS, and any pictures/videos you want to keep. 

 

Only reason im saying a separate ssd for games is because youll run out of space on that 256gb using it for everything. 

 

Gta 5 for example is nearly a 70gb install. Thats almost 25% of your 256gb ssd for 1 game. 

A 500gb would allow you to have enough games installed without installing and unistalling one or more to make room.

Thanks for the recommendation, Im going to get an ssd for games, however, should i Just upgrade to a 1 TB ssd to have my games and the rest of my programs and files on it as well?

[Katsunaka]

1 hour ago, Alda14 said:

Thanks for the recommendation, Im going to get an ssd for games, however, should i Just upgrade to a 1 TB ssd to have my games and the rest of my programs and files on it as well?

Personally I keep my os on its own drive so if something fails, for example my games drive dies, its separate from my os and means I dont have to reinstall my os and all my games.

 

Helps prevent one massive failure.

[porina]

2 minutes ago, Katsunaka said:

Helps prevent one massive failure.

And have twice the risk of a not so massive failure?

 

1 hour ago, Alda14 said:

Thanks for the recommendation, Im going to get an ssd for games, however, should i Just upgrade to a 1 TB ssd to have my games and the rest of my programs and files on it as well?

If you can afford it, get as large as you like and fill it with what you like. I went with a 1TB SSD for games only, filled it, and got another 960GB SSD which is also getting filled... the great thing about SSDs is that even lower performance ones are still way faster than a HD, so no need to get a high end SSD and put more of the money towards capacity. Also games are usually a big write on install but you don't write that much after, apart from the occasional major patch. So write wear isn't something to be overly concerned about.

[Katsunaka]

27 minutes ago, porina said:

And have twice the risk of a not so massive failure?

 

Like i said above, would you rather install your os and games all over again or just a games ssd? 

 

Reinstalling games and leaving my os alone sounds like a better deal. 

 

Plus as of right now my os is on its own drive, my games are 2 drives, and my back up is on a drive that only gets installed when i do the back up.

[porina]

48 minutes ago, Katsunaka said:

Like i said above, would you rather install your os and games all over again or just a games ssd? 

 

Reinstalling games and leaving my os alone sounds like a better deal. 

Are you making an assumption the games SSD is far more likely to fail than your OS one for some reason? Doesn't make sense.

[Alda14]

1 hour ago, Katsunaka said:

Personally I keep my os on its own drive so if something fails, for example my games drive dies, its separate from my os and means I dont have to reinstall my os and all my games.

 

Helps prevent one massive failure.

Yea thats what Im going to do. Ill just keep my 250 GB ssd with my OS and spotify on it, and then just get another SSD for everything else. Thanks so much!

[Katsunaka]

1 hour ago, porina said:

Are you making an assumption the games SSD is far more likely to fail than your OS one for some reason? Doesn't make sense.

No a drive is subject to fail at any time.

 

Id rather have one drive fail and have to redo whatever was on it, than to have to re do os, games, programs all over because they were all on the same drive.

 

SSDs are getting cheap enough that its worth it to break up games and os. 

[porina]

50 minutes ago, Katsunaka said:

No a drive is subject to fail at any time.

 

Id rather have one drive fail and have to redo whatever was on it, than to have to re do os, games, programs all over because they were all on the same drive.

 

SSDs are getting cheap enough that its worth it to break up games and os. 

You really expecting SSDs to fail often enough for that to be meaningful? If you care about data, you'd take backups anyway. Otherwise, they're reliable enough this reasoning doesn't really make sense. There are other reasons for going multiple drives, but I don't buy this one.