Is it worth going stricting only SSDs ?

[River]

Or do Hard Drives still have a spot ?

I am amazed how much faster it is moving a large amount of data with SSDs from portable SSD to desktop SSD , etc !

[River]

I know 4 TB SSDs are still expensive.

[Beardface31]

For mass storage of music, video, documents... I think the HDD still has its place..

[River]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Beardface31:

For mass storage of music, video, documents... I think the HDD still has its place..

:datadisk:

Good point.

[76561198343548661]

Ssd s load games 2x faster than hdds , in general . SATA and M.2 ssd s, in gaming , have close performance . A good hdd , defraged , could deliver a very good performance but yeah ssd s are faster . If PC has 16GB RAM or more , it would speed up the access to hdd .

DirectStorage once adopted in gaming couild increase the M.2 ssd advantage .

[Illusion of Progress]

Do hard drives still have a spot? Objectively, yes.

Do hard drives still have a spot for you? That's a question only you can answer, not us.

Finding the answer is quite easy. Decide how much storage space you want/need, and decide if the cost of that space in SSDs is worth it. Also consider what your storage needs are. SSDs are faster and that is nice, but not all storage roles need that speed. So if you're paying four or more times the cost for the same capacity, it can get too costly to be worth it if either your storage needs are high enough, or your finances low enough, or some combination.

For example, my last storage purchase was a pair of 8 TB hard drives. Before that, a 5 TB external drive that I will eventually need to replace next. It was quite a bit under $300 after taxes and shipping and everything for the pair of drives (~$129 each at the time). By contrast, that same space in SSDs at the time would have been pushing well into four figures. Given these are storage drives where real-time performance beyond what the HDDs can provide isn't necessary, it would have been rather pointless for me to go with SSDs for them (not that I would have been willing to afford them anyway).

For just 1 TB or now even 2 TB as a system or main secondary drive, or if you're feeling fancy and have the funds, a single 4 TB drive for games, it's a bit easier to do. But for larger capacity needs where you need redundancy (and thus multiple drives) and where real time performance needs beyond what an HDD provide is merely a "nice to have" rather than worthwhile given the cost premium, not only is there a place for HDDs but they're really your only real option then unless you're made of money.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Also ask yourself, do you NEED 4+ TB of Games stored on SSDs to also be at the ready?

You can have 20TB of games downloaded, who cares. But they do not all need to be on an SSD. You can easily off-load many games you want downloaded, but don't play often enough, stored on a Backup HDD. 8-12 TB HDDs are cheap.

There are often good sales on Samsung 870 EVO and 870 QVO SSDs online, keep an eye out. As well as others such as Samsung 970 and 980 NVME series of SSDs.

You also don't need to have all of your SSDs be NVME. Most games will never utilize what an NVME SSD can dish out. When a sale comes around like we just had pretty much all November long, I grab up 4TB and 8TB models of SSDs. Well worth it when on-sale.

[River]

Good ideas everyone!

[r.linder]

It's wise to use both storage technologies since they both have their pros and cons.

Pros of using SSDs:
1. (Generally) much faster storage, especially at higher bandwidths when the data load pushes the drive to use much of its rated speeds
2. Since it uses flash memory and no moving parts, it's not prone to mechanical failure and generally lasts longer as a result
3. Most SSDs are completely shock-proof, meaning dropping the drive shouldn't result in any data corruption or loss.
4. Due to their smaller form factor, you can realistically fit more of them inside of cases, even when you run out of actual drive cages, since they don't vibrate you can pretty much just let them sit anywhere.

Cons of using SSDs:
1. NAND flash has its own lifespan, so while these drives won't go bad from mechanical failure, the NAND can still die due to extended usage outside of its operating temperature range. NAND flash tends to run more efficiently and lasts longer on the warmer side, but not too warm that it could damage the NAND.
2. SSDs only have so many writes before you can't write any more information to the drive. Different types of NAND have more writes while cheaper types have less.
3. When it comes to different bandwidths like PCI-e 4.0 x4, both your CPU and motherboard have to support that bandwidth version, otherwise you'll be locked down to an earlier version that runs slower than the rated speeds. What's more, you'll only fully tap into those speeds when the load put on the drive in a given point in time is heavy enough to actually push the controller, it doesn't run at its full potential all of the time, that's why most of the time, a standard 2.5" SATA SSD can load games almost just as fast as a PCI-e 3.0 x4 or 4.0 x4 SSD.
4. Cost per GB is considerably higher depending on the brand and model; right now you can buy an 8TB WD Black drive for 100$, the cheapest SSDs for the same price only offer 2TB, but if you wanted something higher quality from Samsung like the 980 Pro, that would get you only 1TB, and the top-shelf 990 Pro costs 70$ more than both of those drives for 1TB.
5. Wiping an SSD will damage the NAND and shorten its lifespan, always use secure erase.

HDDs can go bad at any point but because of the low cost/GB, they're perfect for mass storage and they're still used by enterprises and data centers as there's different drive colours/lines specifically made for things their servers do. Even people at home can probably find some use in WD Red (used for network-accessible storage) drives if they want to store data they can access from any system on their network.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Any drive or device can up and die at any random time for any reason.

[r.linder]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

Any drive or device can up and die at any random time for any reason.

Nor does it really hurt the user in any way as long as data is backed up and they didn't void their warranty. My first NVMe drive died earlier this year after around a petabyte of writes to it, and ADATA sent a newer model as a replacement.

[UserNotFound]

My revised main gaming rig will have:
500GB Crucial P3 Plus NVMe M.2 Gen 4 x4 (OS + Essential programs)
2TB Kingston NV2 NVMe M.2 Gen 4 x4 (Games)
2TB Teamgroup MP33 NVMe M.2 Gen 3 x4 (Games)
4TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD (Games)
2TB Samsung 860 QVO SATA SSD (Games)
6TB WD Black HDD (Games that I don't play that often)
2TB - 4TB Seagate HDD (or similar) for downloads/music

My 2nd rig:
500GB Crucial P2 NVMe M.2 Gen 3 x4 (OS)
4TB Leven JS600 SATA SSD
2x 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD
2TB - 4TB WD HDD (or similar) for downloads/music/movies

I have already gotten almost all the SSDs, just waiting for the Kingston to arrive, when I get back in February, it'll be fun time indeed! The SSD will more or less have games installed permanently, though I might delete a few games now then, and install new ones. I I tend to get COD MW II and the Calisto, plus my many Steam, Epic, Windows, etc games. Will install my fav games in the SDD

[Bad 💀 Motha]

My OCD is going nuts with all those different brands of SSDs.
OMG like WHY?

[r.linder]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

My OCD is going nuts with all those different brands of SSDs.
OMG like WHY?

Probably buying them based on price/GB at a given time, Leven JS600 is like the cheapest 4TB SSD right now

I've always bought ADATA since they've been good to me and I've only had one drive actually die, but I'm well aware of bad luck from others and the fact that they have several "versions" of drive models because they change things behind the scenes.

[UserNotFound]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

My OCD is going nuts with all those different brands of SSDs.
OMG like WHY?

Some I already have, others bought at what I feel is good price/TB.

[nohuman]

I went with 2 Western Digital sn850x 2tb m.2 drives for this new rig. I bought one at first, but when it hit the top 10 in Canada on 3dmark, I decided I wanted another one. (OS + games)

Plus I have a single WD Blue HDD 2tb for random storage.Hot-swappable thx to my new case.(Everything else)