To SSD or HDD that is the question!

[collinbilsland]

By default Steam is installed on the C: drive (In my case SSD) but after downloading lots of games it wasn't long before my C: drive was reporting that there wasnt a lot of space left. So shortly after joining Steam I moved the whole of my Steam folder to my much larger(HDD) D: drive

Recently on steam the general feedback has been that SSD is way faster than old fashioned HDD so taking advice I uninstalled ETS2 on D:. (Go to your Steam library and right click on Euro Truck Simulator 2 and click Uninstall game.) Then simply click on the big button and reinstalled it on C: before I read this comment on

https://steamcommunity.com/app/227300/discussions/0/619568794028400903/


"The ssd will have absolutely zero impact on the performance of the game. The only thing the ssd will do is improve the loading time at the beginning. And since the game loads in only a few seconds anyway it won't matter."

so okay it was speeding up updates that I was looking at and updates are done like this

The files for bundles get downloaded. Then the bundles get patched with new content. The bundles get repacked. Backup gets removed.

[Wolfgang]

Well, the statement that an SSD won't have any impact on performance is not really correct. A SSD is much faster in reading/writing than a HDD thus not only reducing load time of the game but also loading of the profile after updates and reducing the risk of stutters during auto-saving. And the latter is a impact to the performance of the game.
A SSD is also faster for updates and downloads and the choice for gaming as SSDs don't need to be defragmented (since saving is writing files which on HDDs can lead to fragmentation over time).

[collinbilsland]

looks to me you pays your money and you takes your choice, my system takes care of the drives, defrag etc., as part of its normal housekeeping, stutters when autosaving are more likely to be the size of the files autosaved never noticed that (yet) as for updates I will turn them back on and wait and see

[Nimir-Raj]

One thing you need to bare in mind is space. Steam won't always download to the drive the game is on, if you have limited space on the ssd and windows has more, it will download to windows drive then transfer to ssd when it's updating which inevitably slows down the update process.

You also have to remember that when you install the game to a 2nd drive, the game saves etc are still running from your windows drive, so you will get no benefit of ssd speed on saving unless you reassign the home directory in the game launcher too and specify where to store profiles etc.

You also have to consider windows drive. If you have a lot of background programs running this can cause game lag even though the game itself is running from a different drive.

Personally I say if budget allows, completely replace the windows drive with an ssd that is either larger than your hdd or get two ssds. One for windows and one for game/program installs. Not only will you get better general performance/speed they also use less power than a mechanical drive.

[collinbilsland]

Thanks Mohegan, the SSD drive is my C: drive currently with 100GB of free space - I moved Steam to D: together with my other games so very little beyond windows and ETS2 are on C: the game saves etc are all in the documents folder on C;

I use this particular machine solely for gaming so I have as little as possible in the background (always looking out to see what else I can disable though)

Installed through Steam so they make sure that paths etc are kept correct

[Starbucaneer]

You don't have to uninstall a game and reinstall you can just move it using steam to the drive of your choice

[Bobby]

SSD's don't like less than 75% space on them also. Which is why it's best to have the OS on the SSD and games on the mechanical HDD. I've got a Samsung EVO 850 SSD for the OS and 3 Western Digital Caviars totalling 9TB of space. I've experimented for years with SSD installations and all i've noticed is a faster load time. It barely improves game performance if your system is already pretty good. Space is a premium and that's where a mechanical HDD will always win. Uninstalling and reinstalling is another way of shortening an SSDs life. There's pro's and cons all over the place, but i'm not paying for 9TB of SSD space anytim e soon!

[collinbilsland]

Originally posted by Starbucaneer:

You don't have to uninstall a game and reinstall you can just move it using steam to the drive of your choice

Thanks, Starbucaneer, I will of course remember that in future.

[collinbilsland]

Originally posted by Bobby the Zebra:

. I've got a Samsung EVO 850 SSD for the OS and 3 Western Digital Caviars totalling 9TB of space. I've experimented for years with SSD installations and all i've noticed is a faster load time. It barely improves game performance if your system is already pretty good. Space is a premium and that's where a mechanical HDD will always win. Uninstalling and reinstalling is another way of shortening an SSDs life. There's pro's and cons all over the place, but i'm not paying for 9TB of SSD space anytim e soon!

Ty Bobby I didn't think there would be much in it - a guy I once worked with used to go on about the milliseconds his setup was faster without thinking that he probably wouldnt actually notice as he only used his for surfing the internet

[Bobby]

Of course you'll notice it when booting to your OS. That gives this magic illusion that all gaming will be smokin' fast. It isn't and it doesn't. By all means try a game and see for yourself, but i do recommend an SSD for the OS, as progs will load a lot faster that Win use.
Gaming is a different beast as your talking (PC or laptop or even a dedicated Gaming machine) good mobo, RAM timings,CPU and GPU -as well as the storage the games are on. But it does get all clouded.
12 years later with SSDs and i'm more than happy to keep gaming on mechanical.
As the guy you worked with found out, wep pages, will load faster as will games -load. But it's not going to set your world on fire. plus the SSD will rapidly fill up because of Steam and other clients (Origin,UBi etc) using My docs for game saves and mods, despite you having all games on mechanical. So that's another thing to consider.

Anyway, you have enough info.
Cheers

[collinbilsland]

Again thanks Bobby