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[nkarafo]

I have 8TB of games installed in 2x4 TB HDDs. One of them died on me so now i want to replace it but this time i want to get SSDs because i grew tired of the slow loading times and extra stutters because of slow asset streaming.

Problem is, i can't afford buying 4TB worth of SSDs. Not to mention they are far more expensive in 2024 compared to 2023 for some reason (some are even twice the price).

So i'm thinking of getting some cheaper models from cheaper brands. I don't mind being slower than the Samsungs and i don't know if the lack of cache in some models is a problem for the job. I'm not going to run the OS from those, just transfer the games and run them. So i only need them to be faster and more responsive than a regular HDD. And if i get the cheapest/crappiest SSDs i can find, i should be able to afford the size i need.

Oh and i already have a fast NVMe in my system, for the more demanding games that need more speed or direct storage and stuff like that. This is for the rest of the games that i used to run from an HDD. Even older games can benefit from the extra speed.

Is this a good idea?

 

[The Cockatrice]

Games dont utilize the full potential of SSD's, especially m2. Even a SATA SSD is perfectly fine in all games.

 

[killatopak]

Is this a good idea?

Maybe.

Load times isn’t really an issue for me on old games even on my external HDD. The more recent ones starting from PS360 gen, those are the ones I’ll put in an SSD or external SSD.

Do you really need 4TB though? I don’t know the price sweet spot on SSD nowadays.
If you’re planning to add more into your collection then I guess bigger is fine.

 

[nkarafo]

Maybe.

Load times isn’t really an issue for me on old games even on my external HDD. The more recent ones starting from PS360 gen, those are the ones I’ll put in an SSD or external SSD.

Do you really need 4TB though? I don’t know the price sweet spot on SSD nowadays.
If you’re planning to add more into your collection then I guess bigger is fine.

I like having all my games installed and accessible, even when i'm not playing them for a while.

My goal now is to replace every single HDD left with an SSD. My total internal space was 14TB (4TB currently destroyed so now 10TB). But only 1TB of it is from SSDs and 1TB from the NVMe. The rest are HDDs, both 3.5 and smaller, 2.5 ones. Needless to say, all 8 of my SATA ports are occupied. I'm kind of a data hoarder.

 

[killatopak]

I like having all my games installed and accessible, even when i'm not playing them for a while.

My goal now is to replace every single HDD left with an SSD. My total internal space was 14TB (4TB currently destroyed so now 10TB). But only 1TB of it is from SSDs and 1TB from the NVMe. The rest are HDDs, both 3.5 and smaller, 2.5 ones. Needless to say, all 8 of my SATA ports are occupied. I'm kind of a data hoarder.

That kinda makes things complicated then. I guess the question will be do you really need your games to be on SSD right now or can you still make do with say a sata SSD or even replace stuff with an HDD for now. Personally, I’ll wait for prices to go a bit lower considering it’s a huge amount of data to upgrade to. 12TB right? I guess a piece meal upgrade path is fine too.

If you have the expendable cash then by all means go for it.

 

[CliffBronger]

In my experience cheap sata SSDs fail rather quickly and can have low write speeds.

As a result i tend to buy quality branded SSDs as it's just not worth the hassle.

 

[T4keD0wN]

I like having all my games installed and accessible, even when i'm not playing them for a while.

My goal now is to replace every single HDD left with an SSD. My total internal space was 14TB (4TB currently destroyed so now 10TB). But only 1TB of it is from SSDs and 1TB from the NVMe. The rest are HDDs, both 3.5 and smaller, 2.5 ones. Needless to say, all 8 of my SATA ports are occupied. I'm kind of a data hoarder.

First check your motherboards manual, having too many pcie lanes can actually disable some of the slots which can be a problem if think youll be able to use all of them, so its better to have fewer, but larger ones.
Most motherboards will have far less M.2 slots than SATA ones, most will have only 2-3 slots for m.2 nvme drives so you wont have a choice to either get 4/8tb ones or use sata ssds. You can also use pcie extenders, but it can have its drawbacks.

So i'm thinking of getting some cheaper models from cheaper brands. I don't mind being slower than the Samsungs and i don't know if the lack of cache in some models is a problem for the job. I'm not going to run the OS from those, just transfer the games and run them. So i only need them to be faster and more responsive than a regular HDD. And if i get the cheapest/crappiest SSDs i can find, i should be able to afford the size i need.

For all but a very small selection of the newest games or sony ports theres barely any difference between sata and pcie m.2.

Cheaper drives are completely fine, but its a very bad idea to go with the cheapest/crappiest, do not buy drives without dram they can get extremely slow close to hdd speeds under load. Sequential speeds are not relevant for long-term storage and gaming use cases.

Samsung has good drives, but theyre often overpriced (not always) compared to the competition, you can get solid stuff that is not overpriced like Kingston/WD/Patriot for example, they often sell even faster ssds with more TBW/durability for less in the M.2 space.

If you just want to store a lot of data then consider NAS. Theres nothing wrong with using hdds for storage/media, just dont actively run games from it.

 

[nkarafo]

do not buy drives without dram they can get extremely slow close to hdd speeds under load.

Other information i found online says dram is mostly used for writes, not reads. Games need read speeds, they never actually write anything in their root folders except maybe autosaves in rare cases. All the cache usually goes to the appdata in the system drive, which is already a good quality Samsung SSD.

 

[CJ_75]

8TB of games is a lot. Why do you keep them all on the drive when you have a Steam/Epic Library with games available for download at any given time?
I am fine with 2x 2TB (NVMe) as I have fiber internet (1000 Mbit). Within 30 minutes almost any game are ready to play.
Since you need to save some cash, uninstall games you don’t play as often. Or upgrade your internet speed or have some patience while downloading.
Don’t buy a new SSD or if you can’t help yourself, wait for Black Friday for better deals.

 

[El Muerto]

There's not much speed difference between a 2.5" ssd and a mechanical drive. And considering the cost between the two i would go with a regular 3.5" 7200rpm hdd. I have a 2tb gen4 nvme, and a 6tb hdd drive in my pc, I put my heavy games on my nvme, everything else on the hdd. Read times are significantly higher on the m.2 though, makes a difference when playing something like No Mans Sky. I recently bought this hdd 12tb 7200rpm hdd on ebay for cheap so plenty of room for my games. My steam library is at 1700 games, i like having games i want to try installed so i dont have to wait and download them.

 

[nkarafo]

There's not much speed difference between a 2.5" ssd and a mechanical drive.

Ι disagree. I have notice a huge difference. Even when comparing a fast, 7200 HDD to a cheap SSD. I'm not going to post benchmark results that show a difference of anywhere between 10x to 50x, depending on the benchmark. But i will mention examples of me playing games with either.

- Loading times are noticeably faster. More than 2 or 3 times faster on average.
- Streaming of assets is faster. This is noticeable in open world games where they stream files from the drive all the time.
- Less stutters in games. Last game where i noticed that was Silent Hill 2, the OLD game, not the remake. But it was the modded, enhanced version. There were traversal stutters with the HDD, on the SSD it was all 100% clean.
- Even in emulation i saw a difference. On a slower HDD (5200 rpm) i noticed audio cutoffs while playing San Andreas on PCSX2. Apparently, it's not fast enough to emulate streaming from the DVD. This was fixed on the SSD.
- Loading HD texture mods in various games/projects. A lot of stuttering and mini freezes on HDDs while trying to cache them. None of that on the SSD.

In addition, you get less heat, lower power usage and no noise/buzzing sounds (the 7200 drives are especially annoying and loud). SSDs also don't need to sleep so no 4-5 seconds waiting for the drive to spin every time this happens and you need access to it.

There is no comparison between the two when it comes to any type of usage. For me, HDDs are now only useful as external storage for backup data and nothing more.

Which is why i think i'll be OK with cheap SSDs. Because i only want to replace the HDDs with them, so the standards are very low.

 

[BlackTron]

There's not much speed difference between a 2.5" ssd and a mechanical drive.

False

 

[bbeach123]

More like not much loading time difference between 2.5 and nvme .

 

[winjer]

I would advise to have a couple of things into consideration.
Make sure you have a warranty warranty, just in case.
Don't buy an SSD without DDR memory, or it will have to cache data access into your system memory.
You should have the Windows Page File in the same drive as the game, or else you will probably get a performance loss and increased stutter.

 

[nkarafo]

Nvme is an overkill for games i think. You get into diminishing returns compared to a regular SSD VS HDD.

I would advise to have a couple of things into consideration.
Make sure you have a warranty warranty, just in case.
Don't buy an SSD without DDR memory, or it will have to cache data access into your system memory.
You should have the Windows Page File in the same drive as the game, or else you will probably get a performance loss and increased stutter.

Of course i will get new SSDs with warranties.

Are you sure about the Dram? Again, most of the information i find suggests it's not useful for games. It's only for writes.

I have the Windows page file on the fastest SSD in my computer, which is the system drive. I am thinking of moving it to the NVMe or a RAMDisk even. First time i hear this suggestion tbh. I have multiple drives with games in them so which one should i use? And if i set a page file in all, how do i know Windows is using the one in the same drive as the game i'm playing?

 

[winjer]

Of course i will get new SSDs with warranties.

Are you sure about the Dram? Again, most of the information i find suggests it's not useful for games. It's only for writes.

I have the Windows page file on the fastest SSD in my computer, which is the system drive. I am thinking of moving it to the NVMe or a RAMDisk even. First time i hear this suggestion tbh. I have multiple drives with games in them so which one should i use? And if i set a page file in all, how do i know Windows is using the one in the same drive as the game i'm playing?

The dram cache can also be used for caching data transfers. Writes and reads.

If you have page file on all SSDs, it gets managed by Windows and there is no way to know what it's doing.

 

[StereoVsn]

For older games SATA SSDs are fine. Looks for cheaper drives with decent warranty from reputable brands and catch them on sale.

So Crucial, Western Digital, Kingston, etc…. Do try to get ones with DRAM cache if you can.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

crucial 4tb m2 $200

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PCIe-NAND-NVMe-3500MB/dp/B0B25P44CL/ref=asc_df_B0B25P44CL/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693404282528&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2699283875250464354&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031548&hvtargid=pla-1687640338996&mcid=0f585da4fb4b31fbb7c106ec53928d4e&th=1

then grab a heatsink when you can.

also 8TB of games is a lot. maybe re-evaluate that.

 

[Xyphie]

The dram cache can also be used for caching data transfers. Writes and reads.

This is not what DRAM on a SSD does, everything is read and written directly to and from cells every time. DRAM just reduces access time to the mapping table.

 

[nkarafo]

also 8TB of games is a lot. maybe re-evaluate that.

Ok, it's not all native PC games, half of it is Emulation related.

 

[El Muerto]

Ι disagree. I have notice a huge difference. Even when comparing a fast, 7200 HDD to a cheap SSD. I'm not going to post benchmark results that show a difference of anywhere between 10x to 50x, depending on the benchmark. But i will mention examples of me playing games with either.

- Loading times are noticeably faster. More than 2 or 3 times faster on average.
- Streaming of assets is faster. This is noticeable in open world games where they stream files from the drive all the time.
- Less stutters in games. Last game where i noticed that was Silent Hill 2, the OLD game, not the remake. But it was the modded, enhanced version. There were traversal stutters with the HDD, on the SSD it was all 100% clean.
- Even in emulation i saw a difference. On a slower HDD (5200 rpm) i noticed audio cutoffs while playing San Andreas on PCSX2. Apparently, it's not fast enough to emulate streaming from the DVD. This was fixed on the SSD.
- Loading HD texture mods in various games/projects. A lot of stuttering and mini freezes on HDDs while trying to cache them. None of that on the SSD.

In addition, you get less heat, lower power usage and no noise/buzzing sounds (the 7200 drives are especially annoying and loud). SSDs also don't need to sleep so no 4-5 seconds waiting for the drive to spin every time this happens and you need access to it.

There is no comparison between the two when it comes to any type of usage. For me, HDDs are now only useful as external storage for backup data and nothing more.

Which is why i think i'll be OK with cheap SSDs. Because i only want to replace the HDDs with them, so the standards are very low.

Cache is a crucial factor when looking at hdd's aside from rpm. You'll have a bad experience using a hdd with a 64mb cache vs 256mb. My 7200rpm 256mb hdd can load games almost as fast a SSD. I just tested Horizon Zero Dawn loads into the game just a few seconds slower than a cheap sandisk hdd compared to my 7200rpm 256mb hdd. Using crystaldisk the ssd read speeds are about 40% higher than the mechanical drive, not 5x-10x, but games load almost as fast. I also use the same hdd for PS2 emus. I never had any issues in The Getaway with a hd texture pack. I can also play switch roms fine too. This is just my experience. Just got to ask yourself is it worth it to pay more to get a large cheap ssd to shave off a few seconds of a game having to load.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. You can totally use an external SSD drive for games and it works fine. It is fast enough.
I found a one for a good price just now.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CGVZL1M1

 

[nkarafo]

Cache is a crucial factor when looking at hdd's aside from rpm. You'll have a bad experience using a hdd with a 64mb cache vs 256mb. My 7200rpm 256mb hdd can load games almost as fast a SSD. I just tested Horizon Zero Dawn loads into the game just a few seconds slower than a cheap sandisk hdd compared to my 7200rpm 256mb hdd. Using crystaldisk the ssd read speeds are about 40% higher than the mechanical drive, not 5x-10x, but games load almost as fast. I also use the same hdd for PS2 emus. I never had any issues in The Getaway with a hd texture pack. I can also play switch roms fine too. This is just my experience. Just got to ask yourself is it worth it to pay more to get a large cheap ssd to shave off a few seconds of a game having to load.

Both 4TB drives i have (or had) are 256MB cache drives (WD). And they are slow as shit. All the problems i listed refer to these drives. Maybe it's because they are also 5200 rpm but there was no way to let 2x 7200rpm drives in my system, i need my sanity.

This is their performance:

Most SSDs, even the crappiest ones, hover at 500MB/s read speeds. That's for the sequential reads. Random reads are anywhere between 20 - 40MB/sec. Which is where the "10x faster" claim comes from.

There is no comparison with HDDs.

And it's not only about loading a few seconds faster. I already posted my list of issues.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Ok, it's not all native PC games, half of it is Emulation related.

and yeah ignore anyone recommending an HDD.
SSD's improved latency alone is enough to ditch HDDs forever.
i have a 10k rpm raptor HDD i still use for fun and its slow as hell.

 

[nkarafo]

i have a 10k rpm raptor HDD i still use for fun and its slow as hell.

Damn, i bet this thing sounds like a washing machine.

 

[JimboJones]

I have a 2TB HDD connected to a basic 128GB SATA drive with primocache . Only used for media and older games.

 

[Griffon]

SATA SSDs are more than good enough. And when comes the day it isn't anymore, nvme drives will be much cheaper.

Forget HDDs.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. I use the HDDs for the older games and indie games. They also work great for emulation.

I only use an SSD when it is required.

 

[Crayon]

I bought the cheapest of the cheap no name sata ssd five years back because I only use it for games and don't ever put anything critical on it.

I would have upgraded it by now but... I forget it's even there because it's fine. And it would only take like 15 minutes to re-install nobara and log into steam so there's not even the lazy excuse.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Damn, i bet this thing sounds like a washing machine.

in single player games, i could tell when something new was about to happen (cutscene, new area, boss) because a second or two before it happened, id hear the bzz bz bzzz bzzzzzzzz bz bz bzzzzzzzzzzzz bz bz bzzzzzzzz of the HDD

 

[BlackTron]

and yeah ignore anyone recommending an HDD.
SSD's improved latency alone is enough to ditch HDDs forever.
i have a 10k rpm raptor HDD i still use for fun and its slow as hell.

I can hardly even fathom using HDDs for anything the system is actually running. I remember when SSD was new and it was like magic that you could turn your molasses potato PC into something good to use just by upgrading the drive to SSD.

I still use HDDs for backups and media like music and movies. I don't trust SSD enough and it's more expensive so yeah. The only time I would use a HDD for a game is loading an old one that doesn't require installation directly off a backup drive.

 

[SportsFan581]

Gaming is more read heavy, the cache isn't going to do a lot for you there.

 

[Hoddi]

I switched out my remaining HDDs for cheapo 2x4TB Samsung QVO drives last year. Aside from fairly crappy write speeds during patches then I don't really notice much practical difference between these SATA drives and faster NVMe ones. You'll want to avoid those barrel bottom drives on Ali but I otherwise wouldn't sweat it too much.

I found the switch worthwhile just to escape HDD spin-up times.

 

[Dorago]

My 8TB HDD just failed and I wanted to replace it with an SSD or NVMe.

There are 8TB models of both, but they are stipidly expensive.

I looked at 4TB models instead.

These can be had for ~$200.

However, and 8TB 7200RPM HDD can be had for ~$115 right now.

I could match my original storage capacity with SSD/NVMe's for $400, or I could doulbe my capacity for $230 with two HDDs.

I did the latter.

 

[Minsc]

I switched out my remaining HDDs for cheapo 2x4TB Samsung QVO drives last year. Aside from fairly crappy write speeds during patches then I don't really notice much practical difference between these SATA drives and faster NVMe ones. You'll want to avoid those barrel bottom drives on Ali but I otherwise wouldn't sweat it too much.

I found the switch worthwhile just to escape HDD spin-up times.

You can also use software to write random data every 30 seconds or whatever to avoid spin up, but I avoid regular HDDs for everything but media storage. I just can't justify the expense of running 18TB or more of 4k UHDs rips on SSDs, especially when the required read speed to view them is ridiculously low, like 5MB/s.

 

[nkarafo]

You can also use software to write random data every 30 seconds or whatever to avoid spin up

Can't you just disable turning them off from the advanced power options?

 

[Hoddi]

Can't you just disable turning them off from the advanced power options?

So that they never spin down? It's certainly an option if you're okay with that.

You might be underestimating how often it happens without you knowing though. If you typically put your system to sleep then spinning the disks up on wake will take a bit longer, for example. Likewise if you turn the system off during the night then it will make booting take a bit longer. Depending on your system, it might not even wake them all concurrently but rather first disk 1 and then disk 2 before disk 3 etc. It all adds up to the boot time.

All of these are just 'quality of life' features though. I'm personally much happier with my PC now that I've put all my HDDs into an external enclosure that I keep switched off most of the time. It makes my PC much snappier on average now that I don't have to wait for the HDDs and I don't really mind running my games off those slow-ish SATA SSDs. In reality, most games still don't fully saturate the SATA link outside of a few during the initial boot-up. If you can afford switching to a pure SSD system relatively easily then I'd personally go for it.

Edit:

If you can't swing the cost then I really, really want to suggest giving PrimoCache a try. I used it for ~5 years to accelerate my HDDs and I couldn't recommend it more. It's the first and only time in my life that I've bought shareware/trialware and I absolutely swear by it.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

I have 8TB of games

Jesus Christ. Are you a pirate bay seed server farm or something? Why on earth would anyone need 8TB of games on hand?

 

[Hoddi]

Jesus Christ. Are you a pirate bay seed server farm or something? Why on earth would anyone need 8TB of games on hand?

PCs aren't consoles and it's really not that hard to hit multiple terabytes on PC these days. My emulator folder alone is almost a terabyte and my Gamepass folder is similar. Photos and videos? No idea.

It's really more a case of 'why clean up your junk when you can just throw in another drive?' I have over 36TB of storage hooked to my PC and I don't even know what half of it is.

 

[nkarafo]

Jesus Christ. Are you a pirate bay seed server farm or something? Why on earth would anyone need 8TB of games on hand?

4TB of it is my emulation/frontend setup.

 

[WhamBamThankYouMaam]

Can get somewhat of a difference from going up just a tiny step to get good cache etc.

 

[nkarafo]

Ok so i bought the first SSD to start the process of replacing the dead hard drive and in time, the rest of the hard drives in my system.

I got a cheap 2TB Teamgroup SSD. It had a ton of positive reviews on the local site i use so i got that. I saw some prof reviews as well and i knew what to expect.

I would like to report the way this SSD performs while writing. I assume this doesn't apply to read speeds, only write.

This drive is meant to fill up to 90% of it's space. For the first 1TB half, the write speed was a steady, near 500MB/sec, which is great. But after that, the write speed would fall to as low as 160MB/sec, which is the speed of a fast HDD.

Then i took a launch break for 15 minutes, (without using the SSD during that time, it was idle for that duration). And when i started to copy the next files, the speed would again climb to 500MB and then drop again to under 200 after about 60-70GB were written.

It seems like when i don't use the drive, the empty space that is left becomes more "write ready" or something. Is it doing something to itself in the background?

 

[Quasicat]

For the newer type games, I find that they are designed for a strong, high quality ssd. Games from the Xbox One/PS4 generation don’t really need an ssd to perform well unless they are at the end of the generation (for example, I keep Red Dead Redemption 2 on an ssd to keep the massive load times down).

Surprisingly, I found when streaming video off of my Plex server, the ssd performs at the exact same speed as a good hdd. With the price of high capacity mechanical drives being cheaper than the ssd, it’s a better way to go. Perhaps look at the kind of games you are playing. If they are older, a high quality hdd would be a much better value than an ssd and the trade off wouldn’t be that bad.

 

[nkarafo]

For the newer type games, I find that they are designed for a strong, high quality ssd. Games from the Xbox One/PS4 generation don’t really need an ssd to perform well unless they are at the end of the generation (for example, I keep Red Dead Redemption 2 on an ssd to keep the massive load times down).

Surprisingly, I found when streaming video off of my Plex server, the ssd performs at the exact same speed as a good hdd. With the price of high capacity mechanical drives being cheaper than the ssd, it’s a better way to go. Perhaps look at the kind of games you are playing. If they are older, a high quality hdd would be a much better value than an ssd and the trade off wouldn’t be that bad.

I decided to use HDDs only as external backups from now on.

You see, if you are going to use an HHD as an internal device to run games, you aren't going to get a slow, 5200rpm one. You are going to get a fast 7200. These are a bit more expensive and much, MUCH louder. They also use more power and get too hot.

So, instead of a fast, loud and hot HDD, why not a cheap SSD? Yes, the cheap SSDs will not be as fast as a good quality Samsung SSD but they will still be much faster than a fast, loud, hot HDD and more than enough for all modern games. You don't need an expensive SSD or NVMe for games right now, you are hitting diminishing returns. The difference between a fast HDD and a cheap SSD is more massive. Besides, i already have a very fast 4th gen Samsung NVMe (1TB) for the rare cases where that kind of speed will be used.

And yes, even the cheaper SSDs are still more expensive than HDDs at the same capacity but only for about 30%. I can happily pay that much more for the same capacity but much higher speeds and zero noise.

 

[Quasicat]

I decided to use HDDs only as external backups from now on.

You see, if you are going to use an HHD as an internal device to run games, you aren't going to get a slow, 5200rpm one. You are going to get a fast 7200. These are a bit more expensive and much, MUCH louder. They also use more power and get too hot.

So, instead of a good, loud HDD, why not a cheap SSD? Yes, the cheap SSDs will not be as fast as a good quality Samsung but they will still be much faster than a fast, loud HDD and fast enough for all modern games. You don't need an expensive SSD or NVMe for games right now, you are hitting diminishing returns. The difference between a fast HDD and a cheap SSD is more massive. Besides, i already have a very fast NVMe (1TB) for the rare cases where that kind of speed will be used.

And yes, even the cheaper SSDs are still more expensive than HDDs at the same capacity but only for about 30%. I can happily pay that much more for the same capacity but much higher speeds and zero noise.

Sounds like a good compromise…especially if sound vibration is important to you on your setup. I don’t hear my mechanical drives, but my PC unit sits in a gaming cabinet so that make sense.

Before I subscribed to an offsite cloud service a few years ago, mechanical backups were super convenient and all I used.

 

[simpatico]

I've never bought an SSD that wasn't the cheapest available that day. Benchmarks support this decision. SATA only so far. Maybe grab an M2 next time I buy a drive.

 

[nkarafo]

Sounds like a good compromise…especially if sound vibration is important to you on your setup.

Yeah, that low frequency vibration buzz drove me crazy in my previous builds. The hardest thing to soundproof. This is why all four of my internal HDDs in my current build are 5200rpm. I also have a 2.5 inch from a laptop. These are all much more silent, they don't spin fast enough to produce this vibration and they are also way less hot. But at the same time they are slow and i noticed that lately, a lot.

So i need more speed but without the noise and temps of the faster HDDs, or the high price of the top SSDs. So cheap, dram-less SSDs are my only option really.

Another reason i only want SSDs is also because i have all 8 available SATA ports occupied. Yeah, i have 8 different drives, 5 of them were HDDs (now 4). That's quite a bit of power from my 8 year old trusty 620W PSU. And because i plan to replace my GTX 1060 with a RTX 3060, i want to reduce the power from all the drives as much as possible since the new card needs 40W more than my current one.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Cheaper drives are completely fine, but its a very bad idea to go with the cheapest/crappiest, do not buy drives without dram they can get extremely slow close to hdd speeds under load. Sequential speeds are not relevant for long-term storage and gaming use cases.

In my experience it's even worse. They will be blazing fast for a few minutes and they will often slow to a screeching hault. Often to the point where a regular HDD outpaces them in the end.

 

[adamsapple]

In my completely unscientific opinion, I don't see any reason why cheaper SSD's for gaming will be a problem.

For reference, The Matrix Experience, one of the heaviest things in the market, only needs 300MB/s of data streaming. 99% of games will need (a lot) less than that. This is considerably lower than PS5's 5500MB/s SSD, for reference.

The only issue I can foresee is build quality on those drives and how soon they might break down on a mechanical level.

 

[nkarafo]

In my experience it's even worse. They will be blazing fast for a few minutes and they will often slow to a screeching hault. Often to the point where a regular HDD outpaces them in the end.

This is similar to what i'm experiencing with my new, cheap drive.

However, it doesn't slow down that much. Even during the slow pace writes, it's still faster than the HDDs i use at least.

The slowdowns only affect write speeds. I only need this SSD for running games from it so i only need fast read speeds.

The slowdowns don't happen if i copy-paste smaller chunks of data. Instead of copying a 100GB folder in it's entirety, i just copy 1/3 of it separately.This way i copied the whole thing at the full, 500MB/s speed. If i did it in 1 go, it would slowdown halfway through at 170MB/s and the total time would be much longer. Not sure why it works like that, it seems like taking small breaks help the SSD a lot. I don't think it's heat, the SSD doesn't report temps higher than 39c.

Maybe it's the lack of dram. But either way it doesn't bother me. It's still much better than an HDD in every way. And i will only copy stuff in it once every full moon. I only need the loading/streaming speed.