Where do you install your games? (SSD or HDD)


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I have stuck an SSD into my htpc/gaming machine and also have a 3TB WD RED that i use for data storage, where should i be installing my games?

 

I've searched online but a lot of responses seem inconclusive... most talk about reducing the life of the SSD especially with open world games, in my limited knowledge an SSD should technically out live a standard HDD because of no moving parts?

 

Second is space.. this is not an issue for me, the 240GB SSD only holds Windows, Plex and Steam so i gave over 200GB free and would only be installing a few games.

 

I'm not expecting a performance boost either, except maybe faster loading times, the box is already fast enough.

 

So does it boil down to personal preference or is there a preferred method?

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HDD. I like to keep all my games installed at once and my Steam folder is over 1.8TB. Manually transferring games over to the SSD is simply too much effort, especially as I rarely know what I'm going to be playing.

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SSD for frequently played games, HDD for others. A lot of games I've played load significantly faster on an SSD. 

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Don't SSD's die faster if you use them constantly for more than just an operating system? .... Might be a rumour.

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HDD then I move one or two games to the 256 SSD as needed. Usually MMOs for the loading.

Don't SSD's die faster if you use them constantly for more than just an operating system? .... Might be a rumour.

Technically yes, realistically, not to a degree where it matters.

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I used to have a Samsung 830 Series 128GB for OS/Data/Application & 2x Seagate 500GB in stripe for Steam inside my Dell laptop.

 

It was ok for games to begin with, but I found that more often then not I was waiting on the 2x500GB to bust a move for Unreal based games due to the sheer amount of files they encompass or long pauses during loading of areas. That coupled with it destroying my battery life if I left Steam running on start up, I decided to go full SSD last month.

 

I swapped over to Samsung 840 EVO Series 250GB for OS/Data/Applications/VM & 2x Samsung 830 Series 128GB in stripe for Steam. I get no random pauses anymore, no issues with battery life and now the Nvidia GT555M is the bottleneck for anything I want to play.

 

Occasionally I have the odd mild heart attack when the CPU/GPU fan decides that it doesn't need to spin for the first 30mins and the thing is silent as the grave due to no Seagate whine.

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SSD. I want to squeeze out every last bit of things I've bought. I'm currently not running out of space, because I don't keep installed any games I know won't be playing any time soon - that's what Steam and Origin (and in some *cough* cases ISOs on HDD) is for. Wolfenstein will change that, but I've yet to get it.

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I found that most of the time I didn't exceed 390GB of installed games in total on average and I don't need to have every game installed that says "last played date: 11 months ago".

 

Obviously if we're going to have a trend of games in excess of 45GB installed + DLC/Updates per game I'm going to need to rethink things in the future (or buy larger SSD's) but then again, I doubt my machine is going to be able to play those games at an acceptable rate anyway at the moment. Batman Arkham Knight might sway my mind on that.

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I have a terabyte of games on my HDD. I use mklink /j to move games to my SSD as necessary.

 

I'll move a game from E:\Steam\Steamapps\Game to C:\Cache\Game

 

Then use mklink /j E:\Steam\Steamapps\Game C:\Cache\Game

 

This creates a link in the NTFS file system that is completely transparent to software using the files. Best way to do it IMO.

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I have a terabyte of games on my HDD. I use mklink /j to move games to my SSD as necessary.

 

I'll move a game from E:\Steam\Steamapps\Game to C:\Cache\Game

 

Then use mklink /j E:\Steam\Steamapps\Game C:\Cache\Game

 

This creates a link in the NTFS file system that is completely transparent to software using the files. Best way to do it IMO.

Or you could just launch the exe from the new location in most cases :)

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I no longer have any rotating platter HDD in my system. I only have a single Samsung 840 EVO 512Gb so everything installs there. I store my movies, music and documents on a central media/file server.

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Don't SSD's die faster if you use them constantly for more than just an operating system? .... Might be a rumour.

 

Several tests have shown that the most recent SSD can withstand daily writes of several GB of data for several years.

 

Some even tortured the drive to hell and back. No issues in a realistic time-frame.

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All programs are installed on my SSD at the moment as I got a larger memory one and that is all I keep on the SSD, OS and programs

 

My HDD consists of pictures/music/movies and all the install files I need for the programs.

 

Im considering getting a higher performance SSD with smaller capacity just for the OS, keeping my current one for programs only, then just keep my HDD for all my documents and other files. Maybe...im happy as it currently is

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Most games don't really benefit much from SSDs. It's a longer load time from the assets but they just keep everything in RAM once loaded anyway, so the performance boost of an SSD is really just shorter loading screens. This doesn't matter for most games so putting it on HDD saves your SSD's space. If you know a game does a lot of read/write to disk during play though then definitely put it on the SSD.

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If you know a game does a lot of read/write to disk during play though then definitely put it on the SSD.

You mean like all modern games, which use texture and asset streaming to avoid having 5-10 GB of data in memory.

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All programs are installed on my SSD at the moment as I got a larger memory one and that is all I keep on the SSD, OS and programs

 

My HDD consists of pictures/music/movies and all the install files I need for the programs.

 

Im considering getting a higher performance SSD with smaller capacity just for the OS, keeping my current one for programs only, then just keep my HDD for all my documents and other files. Maybe...im happy as it currently is

 

Seeing how you already have an 840 Pro, there are maybe 2 or 3 devices that can top it but not in every category. Off the top of my head, there's also the Samsung SSD XP941 PCIe that Anandtech recently reviewed. Straight up beast. A very expensive beast.

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Using an 840 Pro in mine.. to be honest the difference is negligible on most of the games. I noticed Guild Wars 2 benefits a tad, but not enough to justify the premium space when I have three other high performance 1TB drives, especially for a f'ing game where 1 or 2 extra seconds won't kill me. Only thing on my SSD is the OS itself and most programs, Visual Studio for example I notice a pretty nice boost with. Don't really need all that stuff backed up on the images either, keeps it simple for recovery if something dies.

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I bought an ssd after my hdd for windows began to die, I only have windows on my ssd c drive, everything else that I have control over install locations, go to my other hard drives, that way if I need to re install windows, or upgrade etc... everything, including installer files are kept locally on my machine (I also have a few old drives laying around so I keep backups)

 

edit

 

It's not given that an ssd will outlive any hdd unless there is something wrong with the hdd, ssd's have a finite read/write value, and a life expectancy of between 8-12 years depending on use (I have an ancient quantum fireball 40 gig hdd still working to this day, it came in an old 1 gig Athlon rig I used to have back when windows me was launched <1999-2000 I think> , and the no moving parts is actually of little benefit, unless you have the top of the line uber gaming beast rig and all your drives are ssd with 6GPS blah blah blah,

 

(My ssd is not fully optimised for my mobo as it's too old, but I've gone from 90-120 sec bootup to 45-60, so although I've seen my pc boot quicker, office programs still take a while to load up (iinstalled to C, I had no control over that)

 

There will always be good drives and bad drives, unfortunately.

 

My advice, use the ssd, or get yourself another ssd for OS, then use hdd's for your games, as autosaves and such, equal a write value of some sort to the solid state.

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HDD, because my SSD is 128GBs and I've only 35 left without even installing any games on it. Office, Visual Studio, Unity, WP emulators, and the WInRT apps since they cannot be installed on non-system disks (to my knowledge) take up quite the space.

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I have a WD Black drive that all my games are on. Loading times are already fast enough that I don't feel much need to put them on my ssd, although my ssd is big enough to fit a few.

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Or you could just launch the exe from the new location in most cases :)

Yeah, but my approach allows steam to continue to update the games whilst leaving them on my SSD. I leave DotA2 on my SSD indefinitely.

 It only gets moved back to my HDD when I am about to format my PC.

 

Then I rinse and repeat. It essentially allows me to keep my steam library installed and up to date and to pick and choose which apps get SSD boosts >.<

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My strategy is to put multiplayer games on the SSD, and single player on a HDD. Some multiplayer games, for example BF4, give you an advantage if you spawn before anyone else. But since I only have an Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD, space is too valuable for the single player games where level load times don't matter much.

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