SSDs for gaming

[Jarhead0331]

What are the best SSDs for gaming. Looking to balance storage size, speed and price.

Thanks.

[al_infierno]

Not sure if you had anything specific in mind, but I tend to just go with Samsung's standard SSD series.  Price is pretty good - I'd recommend going for the 1TB for $120 as anything smaller than that will run out quite fast (500GB is the next lowest size).  Performance is great, I don't know that there are alternatives that have better performance, but maybe someone can weigh in.

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-500GB-Internal-MZ-77E500B-AM/dp/B08QBJ2YMG/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=samsung%2Bssd&qid=1618864067&s=electronics&sr=1-3&th=1

[steve58]

If I could afford/needed it, I'd check out the WD Blacks.  Since I suspect you have a fairly new PC, this NVMe ought to work in yours, if you have an open NVMe slot...

[Jarhead0331]

Storage sure has changed over the years. It has become much more complicated than it used to be. Right now, my main rig has a Patriot P300 PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe, in addition to a 4TB mechanical drive. I wonder if I can get a second M.2 NVMe drive in there? The mobo is a MSI B550-A PRO - ATX.

[Destraex]

Your mainboard looks like it might have two m.2 slots so you probably could get another one.
I have standard samsung m.2 and ssd drives combined with my old mechanical from my old system. I have not been as pedantic as I would have with computer equipment for my latest rig. So I could not tell you of the best performing ssd. The m.2 drives are supposed to be faster but one thing I did not look into was whether a second one would have a slower bus speed.... you know like the PCIe primary slot is x16 and the others x8 or even x4. Obviously some SATA slots will be faster as well. But all your SATA slots seem to be the same. Might be like that these days, you used to have a combination of SATA controllers of differing capabilities.

There is a whole art to knowing the best SSD but I am afraid I have not kept up with it. Be curious to know where the PCI-E SSD cards weigh in vs the SSD and m.2.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B550-A-PRO/Specification

[Jarhead0331]

I went with a WD BLACK SN850 NVMe M.2 2280 2TB PCI-Express 4.0 x4 3D NAND w/ Heatsink.

[steve58]

Read Speed   7000 Megabytes Per Second   

Are you sure that'll be fast enough?? 

[Jarhead0331]

Read Speed   7000 Megabytes Per Second   

Are you sure that'll be fast enough?? 

I always say...go big or go home. It didn't make sense to get a drive that is half as capable just to save about $50+/-.  I added a heat sink to the SSD to be safe too.  All in, came to $449. 

[jamus34]

I put a WD black in my new family PC I built for the upstairs as the primary drive.

I’ll be completely honest though in real world use I do not think you’d see any noticeable difference between the mid grade and “the best”. Hell even a Sata SSD is probably “fast enough” if it is being used as a gaming drive.

I think a much bigger issue is if you are using TLC or greater SSD and you start getting near the capacity limit. From what I heard they big down horribly when they fill up vs SLC or MLC (really DLC I guess but I think for typical parlance they use MLC as the dual layer acronym.

[Jarhead0331]

All I know is that for games like DCS and Star Citizen, the faster the SSD, the better. People definitely talk about noticing a tremendous difference. We'll see...

[Jarhead0331]

The SSD is arriving tomorrow and I have a stupid question...after I install it, will I need to adjust any settings in the Bios or will it automatically detect and designate the new drive?

Thanks.

[steve58]

Well, if it isn't recognized after installing and rebooting, then I'd guess , yes, you'll need to go into the BIOS.  I'm thinking that since you already have one NVMe SSD drive installed, it will probably recognize the 2nd one.

[demjansk1942]

Sometimes you have to make sure it gives the proper letter for the drive and the formatting of the new drive.  I figured it out with https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/install-a-new-hard-drive-or-ssd.html a friend on discord at the time because I was stuck.  Check out some YouTube videos and it should be easy https://www.howtogeek.com/345988/how-to-upgrade-and-install-a-new-hard-drive-or-ssd-in-your-pc/

[endfire79]

The SSD is arriving tomorrow and I have a stupid question...after I install it, will I need to adjust any settings in the Bios or will it automatically detect and designate the new drive?

Thanks.

I don't think you will need to adjust your BIOS to accept this drive. It should be detected automatically and when you get into the OS, it will be assigned a letter automatically just as any storage drive.  Once in Windows, check explorer or even run Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc from start menu/command).  If all is well you'll see it there and you can even change the drive lettering later if desired.

I use a M2 NVME SSD for my desktop's boot/OS drive and it's much faster than typical sata SSD (e.g. Samsung Etc).  Disk reading/writing causes a lot of the slowdown on some processes and once you get past that issue, you're flying. I store my go-to major titles on that NVME and load times are very fast (games with very big worlds/maps etc).  I'll get a 2nd one soon.  I believe there's also PCIE cards out there that you can hook NVME SSD too as well if you need more after using up the first two slots.

Keep in mind though, that I try not to keep anything very important on that drive and instead use one of my mechanical HDD drives or a spare SSD drive for that content (or even on the cloud if you are able too).  SSD's do have a finite limit in lifespan.  I don't think you'll reach it unless you're spamming incessant crash logs every minute, but just keep that in mind.

Enjoy!

[Jarhead0331]

Nothing in my life seems to ever be easy...they say it builds character, but it tends to just make me really grumpy.

Anyway, the new SSD arrives today. I unplug my system, take the thing down, open up the case, find the second M.2 slot and eventually realize that the M.2 screw is missing from the standout. God damn it! What the heck!?  I'll skip a lot of the boring details, but I spent a lot of time taking other things apart on the MOBO to see if it wasn't just someplace else. There isn't one loose in there, or taped to the bottom of the case, or anything else.  I call CLX...again...and they tell me it should be screwed into the standout. At least they are nice enough to mail me one.  So, the thought of putting everything back together again only to have take it apart again when the stupid screw arrives is not sitting well with me. I go on the internet and find local computer repair places. I finally find one who will sell me an m.2 screw. I race out the door, get the damn screw, come home, put everything together, plug everything in and....no signal on any of the monitors. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!

As an alternative to throwing my poop and putting holes in my walls, I calm myself down, unplug everything, open the case up, take things apart, reseat the GPU and try again...this time...monitor. Thank God. Now, it didn't detect the new drive upon booting up, but when I went into the BIOS, I saw it, so I know its there. I do a little research and see that I need to run the windows partition application to set up a simple volume.  So far, seems to be working! I haven't tried to transfer my DCS installation to the new drive yet...that comes tonight. Fingers crossed. DCS better cook when loading now. I'm sick of the wait, which can be anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes!