HDD / SSD / M2 Distribution for a Rig Gamer

alambert · Apr 25, 2017

Folks,

I've been in a little dilemma here and I wanted to get the opinion from the experts here. I have a few computers at home for the entire family and I have been switching / upgrading / decommissioning some of them ... which gave me a few spare parts I can consider for a gaming rig. What I have today available I could use:

* 1x M.2 Samsung 960 EVO 500Gb
* 2x SSD Crucial M4 256Gb
* 1x SSD Crucial M4 512Gb
* 2x SSD Kingston SSD Now 480Gb
* 2x HDD Seagate 3Tb 7200RPM (3.5")
* 1x HDD WD 640Gb 5400RPM (2.5")
* 1x HDD WD 500Gb 7200RPM (2.5")

Use balance for that desktop?

* 90% Gaming
* 10% Some MS office / Internet / no IOPS demanding tasks

Some considerations?

* Non-Gaming data (Office Files, movies, MP3, etc...) will not be on that desktop
* All types of gaming today with 16 games installed / ~250Gb in use
* Windows 10 / Asus ROG mobo with 6x SATA ports and 1x M.2 Slot
* I know M2 > SSD > HDD in terms of performance and other items - focused on cost benefits at the end of the day - even with the parts available I dont want to use more than I need.

I can consider all drives above but of course I dont want to use all of them. I am also open to hear suggestions around RAID, etc... or even additional investments but that last option needs to be very compelling to be considered.

Turning to the experts .. thoughts? ... and why?

Thanks All !

Atomicdonut17 · Apr 25, 2017

In one solid rig, I would RAID 1 those 2TB 7200RPM HDDs, and if your motherboard has it, put the M.2 in it. As well, use that 512GB SSD. Install the Windows partition to the M.2 for lightning boot time, use your RAID drives for conventional storage of games and other data, and the SSD/M.2 for whatever you need at the click of a button, like Photoshop, Word, MS360, etc.

alambert · Apr 25, 2017

Atomicdonut17 :

Thanks for your thoughts! You actually touch one of my dilemmas! I was thinking on putting the M.2 for boot ... is it really worth the performance compared to SSDs? not only during the boot but also after that .. I was also thinking about memory swap but for a 16Gb memory computer I don't think it will be intensive or relevant, right?

Atomicdonut17 · Apr 25, 2017

alambert :

It shouldn't be intensive, no. And the M.2 NVMe is EXTREMELY WORTH IT, considering that SSDs are limited by SATA III's 6GB/s data speeds, whereas M.2 NVMe is capable of 32GB/s.

alambert · Apr 25, 2017

Atomicdonut17 :

alambert :

It shouldn't be intensive, no. And the M.2 NVMe is EXTREMELY WORTH IT, considering that SSDs are limited by SATA III's 6GB/s data speeds, whereas M.2 NVMe is capable of 32GB/s.

Good to know .. I know the M.2 itself is way faster than SSD but I thought Windows binaries would not take the advantage of that insane speed after the boot, reason why I was thinking about SSD for boot and keep the M2 for something more "IOPS demanding". Thanks !

Vanguard_BR · Apr 25, 2017

-2x 256GB SSDs in raid for windows 10.
I have a SSD 5 from intel and a 950pro (m.2) the diference in boot time for me is around 2 seconds. My personal experience is that above 200-250mb/s read speeds windows has huge diminishing returns in boot time.

-1x SSD 512GB for games (sata or M.2).
Very few games (like witcher 3 for example) will benefit from the speed of the m.2 SSD, games like fallout 4 are not bottle necked by the SSD. (Again testing with the setup i have, this does not include all games, you should test the games you like to play to decide this one). Even witcher 3 comes from 1-2 seconds loading time to about 3 seconds (950pro against a 5 series intel) and it is the worst case i know (running on a 4790k 4.4GHz). The faster the processor you have the faster the SSD should be to keep up the pace.

-1x HDD 3tb for archiving.
how about placing it on a external drive? Safe and reliable storage for when you need the extra space. If one of your SSDs are getting full just dump the data there and go make yourself a hot coffee.

Please note that i`m not a expert on hardware i just work with editing/recording (mostly games) and this is what worked best for me in the past 2 years, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Thanks.

Atomicdonut17 · Apr 25, 2017

alambert :

Atomicdonut17 :

Good to know .. I know the M.2 itself is way faster than SSD but I thought Windows binaries would not take the advantage of that insane speed after the boot, reason why I was thinking about SSD for boot and keep the M2 for something more "IOPS demanding". Thanks !

You'd have to speak to someone else about binaries, I'm unfamiliar with the specifics. Both are solid state, and for booting, the difference would be pretty minimal, but putting your partition on the M.2 NVMe wouldn't hurt.

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