sage221 Jul 25, 2020 @ 8:26pm
HHD or SSD external harddrive?
I need to get an external harddrive to put games on. Which is best HHD ir SSD?

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Showing 1-13 of 13 comments
Mad Scientist Jul 25, 2020 @ 8:31pm 
Depends on the size of the game and how much it needs to read or write.

Games like RUST would be better on an SSD
Games like CSGO are fine on an HDD.
sage221 Jul 25, 2020 @ 8:43pm 
I am going to put Fallout 4 and Skyrim with tons of mods for both. Probably Oblivion and Falliut too.
cinedine Jul 25, 2020 @ 8:47pm 
HDD for data dumps, SSD for frequently accessed data. In case of tzhe later make sure your connection method doesn't bottleneck it. It's a waste to connect it with USB 2.0.
Veio da Lancha Jul 25, 2020 @ 9:20pm 
Lets also not forget about M.2 if you need really fast access M.2 SSDS are the best option out there. They are faster than the standard SSD. M.2 reading and writing speeds can reach around 3000 megabytes per second
Snapjak Jul 25, 2020 @ 9:42pm 
M.2 is just a connection type, it's not a controller.

NVME however is what you're probably thinking of because you can have an m.2 NVME or an m.2 SATA drive.

You can also have a PCI-E SSD which is another method.
Last edited by Snapjak; Jul 25, 2020 @ 9:44pm
TheTycoon Jul 26, 2020 @ 8:49am 
People still buy HDDs?
76561198407601200 Jul 26, 2020 @ 8:56am 
Originally posted by TheTycoon:
People still buy HDDs?
yes.
Guydodge Jul 26, 2020 @ 9:16am 
if you want large storage at a reasonable price a 7200 SATA drive will be fine.
other than maybe a slightly slower load time chances of you seeing any difference
in gaming is unlikely and rare.dont believe the hype O.S drive is a whole other story.
if cash isnt an issue go for SSD.
Last edited by Guydodge; Jul 26, 2020 @ 9:18am
Sazzouu Jul 26, 2020 @ 9:20am 
Originally posted by TheTycoon:
People still buy HDDs?

People still believe that just because the way of manufacturing is older HDDs are inferior to all other drives? Actually it is HDDs that had the most innovations lately...

Depending on your purposes SSDs or literally ANYTHING but HDDs are both a waste of money and a waste of effort. The only thing I ever put on an SSD is the OS as well as some system relevant programs and some stuff I frequently use (like Steam or my webbrowser(s)). HDDs are perfectly fine in terms of gaming. In fact they are the superior choice because every type of storage suffers on filled percentage. Therefore it is right away the smarter choice to pick 5TBs for the same price of 1TB especially these days where games exceeded way beyond 200GBs of required disk space.

If you can't stand having a loading screen for 30 seconds instead of 15 seconds then sure you should better pick up an SSD. Now lets break the other aspects down given the purpose of GAMING...

Installation of games:
Well of course most (if not all) modern games are delivered via a DRM like Steam or GoG instead of discs... most modern machines don't even have disc drives. So given the slowest speeds for modern HDDs which is around 100-300MB/s (depending on SSHD or normal HDD as well as the quality of it) on both reading and writing you would essentially need at least a 1Gb/s connection in order to exceed that capacity. So no upside on the installation.


Moving data around:
Of course SSDs will outperform HDDs on that one. However I am a very passionated gamer as well as I am messing around with gamefiles a lot due to custom moddings or other stuff and I never had a situation where I would say "Oh yes that one minute of transfer completely stole my youth.". Take that short downtime to grab a coffee or some snacks or whatever. Most of the time I am actually reliefed for having a short break from time to time. Moving around to avoid thrombosis or whatever.

However if we are just talking about performance then this point definately goes to SSDs


Loading times:
Sure for singleplayer games you want to just get in there and start playing so SSDs would be absolutely superior. However most of the time the overhead in loading times is not worth mentioning really. Take this video as an outline...

Most of the time SSDs of any kind are like 50% faster than HDDs which sounds nice and all but given the fact that HDDs just need about 30-40 seconds we are talking about 20 seconds. If HDDs were around a few minutes of loading times THEN I would be on team SSD for ages now. But what is discussed here is just first world problems nit-picking nonsense.


Lifespan:
Now that is a point that is actually worth mentioning. With all their risk factors like vibration and stuff HDDs seem to be absolutely inferior. However it was proven that in terms of datasafety HDDs completely outperfom SSDs. Things as humidity and temperature is something that harms SSDs way harder than HDDs as well as powerloss or any sort of incident like that can cause severe data loss on SSDs since they use a completely different way of handling and storing data than HDDs besides the fact that HDDs use magnetic discs.

I recommend this article on that topic...
https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/blog/hdds-vs-ssds

On average the SSDs will definately last longer because their wear-off on extensive useage is not that high as it is on HDDs. However overall HDDs are the more reliable storage which is the exact reason why most servers these days still rely on HDDs over SSDs.


So long story short yes there is people still buying HDDs basically because given the needs wasting money on SSDs and fitting motherboards is completely useless.
Last edited by Sazzouu; Jul 26, 2020 @ 9:27am
SSD all the way, HDD is way too slow and oldschool.
_I_ Jul 26, 2020 @ 2:22pm 
for external, ssd
2.5in hdds are very slow and fragile

internal 3.5in 7200rpm hdd is fast enough for games and media if they are on sata controllers not usb
sage221 Jul 26, 2020 @ 8:14pm 
Wow thanks for all the great info!!!!
Tristan Jul 26, 2020 @ 8:23pm 
MV2

they r the best

https://ibb.co/CW8sty0
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Date Posted: Jul 25, 2020 @ 8:26pm
Posts: 13