Boot/Windows SSD vs General Storage SSD for Games?

[DeathMetalJedi]

Would there be any difference in things like load times, texture streaming etc. if you install a game on your SSD with windows installed vs a SSD that is purely for storage?

[Frank ツ]

I heard its best to install games on a different drive then the OS drive, but then again im not a pc expert.

[DeathMetalJedi]

Frank님이 먼저 게시:

I heard its best to install games on a different drive then the OS drive, but then again im not a pc expert.

I was just curious if the fact that they were both SSDs would make any difference

[Frank ツ]

DeathMetalJedi님이 먼저 게시:

Frank님이 먼저 게시:

I heard its best to install games on a different drive then the OS drive, but then again im not a pc expert.

I was just curious if the fact that they were both SSDs would make any difference

My answer still applies to that, but like i said im not an expert.

[Carlsberg]

I have both, some games on each and I see no difference in performance.

[nullable]

DeathMetalJedi님이 먼저 게시:

Would there be any difference in things like load times, texture streaming etc. if you install a game on your SSD with windows installed vs a SSD that is purely for storage?

Inconsequential.

SSDs are plenty fast regardless. While system can have multiple drives (of any combination of SSDs or SSD/HDD) it's not a strict requirement. There's nothing wrong with having a one big SSD and running off that alone.

Having multiple drives or even a large drive with a partition has some utility benefits. There is a convenience to being able to format C: while most of your data is safe on D:. But I don't think there's strong evidence of meaningful performance difference to having multiple drives. If anyone has some benchmark data I'd love to see it.

But I don't think the demands Windows puts on a SSD cripple it so that a second SSD becomes especially desirable to improve performance (although having plenty of SSD space is nice). Even less so if the boot drive is NVMe.

I still run a system with a SATA SSD boot drive, and a NVMe boot drive SSD. And run plenty of software off each of those boot drives and I'm never thinking the SATA system is especially slow. I don't even notice a difference, the only thing I notice is that both systems are faster than any HDD based system I've ever used. And that's really the point of SSDs anyway, improve disk bottlenecks caused by slow disks.

[Los.Injurus.Bob.Blunderton]

There is not enough disk access being requested by Windows running off the same drive to make a notable difference in game speed*. The only reason people run Windows off one and have games on the other was most often due to not having one single drive large enough for most games to fit.
*Unless you're engaging in means of making your computer an illegal "stolen media" server for the whole 'hood to download, there shouldn't be much background disc access going on to the point where it makes a difference in game FPS and hence player's immersion.
Get an SSD with good random 4k read/write numbers for best Windows load times that still fits your budget (extra money is better spent on GPU/CPU or more RAM), and if you run out of space later add another any-brand SSD for your games. Game storage doesn't need a super-fast top-dollar drive as it doesn't get written to in bulk often, only when installing or deleting games. Read performance is generally good across the board for SSDs and often you won't be loading such large files as to make a notable difference in peak sustained throughput and hence a difference in game loading times. Game drives also don't need high endurance as you'll never use that endurance up in even twice the time if it's just for storing large games.
Now, if you do WORK like using Adobe Premier or write large graphic files and models to it often, that's a different story - then get a good one like a Samsung Pro series drive.
That said, next time you need space and you see a 500gb or 1tb SSD go on sale, grab it and hook it up, try not to worry too much about brand. Almost any brand of SSD is better than even a great HDD by orders of magnitude.