Install Location - Same or Different SSD as Windows 10 - Does it matter?

tjbhunter · March 2017

Hello All,
First, I would like to say that I did search the forums, and did not find a thread for this topic. If you know of one, please let me know and I will look there.

My wife's PC is currently running Windows 10 Home 64-bit on a 250GB SSD. On that same SSD, I have ESO installed. It's the only hard drive in use on that system, and its entirely a gaming system. The build details are below, in case it matters.

My question - I have heard conflicting opinions on whether or not installing ESO on a second SSD is advantageous or not. Her disk is reaching 80% capacity, and I am starting to consider what I should do.
I have heard that having a dedicated SSD, just for games like ESO (where load times can be long), is beneficial, relieving the SATA traffic from also having to run Windows on that port/channel.
I have also heard that having everything on one disk is better, because it lets windows access all the game files quicker by not having to go across the sata channels to another disk.

Does anyone have a decent understanding of this, or experience trying both? I will either get her a single 500GB SSD put transfer everything over to it (as it is), or, I will get her another 250GB SSD, and just re-install all her games on it.

Likewise - If I install ESO on a second SSD, where should I put the loader? On the same disk as ESO, or on the WINDOWS disk?

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

BUILD:
i5-4570 (Haswell)
GA-Z87X-UD3H
2 - ASUS R9 290 (CrossfireX) (R9290-DC2OC-4GD5)
16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
250GB Samsung EVO SSD (SATAIII)
850W Corsair PSU

RedWarrior72 · March 2017

Does not really matter where the main game or launcher is. I had mine on a platter 1TB hd for a long time and my OS was on a 120GB SSD. Since the cost on large SSD's have come down, I bought 2 Mushkin Reactor 1TB models about a year ago and 1 has the OS, ESO and all my shooter game like Battlefield 1 on it and most of my other games on the other one with the 1Tb and an additional 4TB platter hd's for back up and data. Right now I believe the Muskins are one of the lowest priced for 1TB in the 2.5 in market with the speeds close to the Samsung EVO, a little slower, but for about 75 bucks less, I can deal with it

TBH, only online games really need to be on SSD's anyway because of the much faster load speeds when compared to a platter. Lets put it this way, I played WoW for years (used to), and it started on a platter, then I put it on my SSD and the load times were nothing less than breathtakingly faster. I timed the log in once and my times dropped from around 20 seconds to about 3-4 seconds, depending on internet speed only from that point forward.

As far as the access from one HD with the OS to another with the game, if it is on an SSD there will be no discernible time difference, even accessing a platter there is no real difference. It is the load time is where you can see a time difference like I mentioned. But if you have two SSD’s it won’t matter.

tjbhunter · March 2017

Thank you RedWarrior.
Follow up question... Does an SSD suffer in performance when its reaching it max capacity, like a mechanical or "platter" as you call it (never heard that term for a mechanical HD before)? My wife's SSD is floating around 80-85%... Its not really changing much, as all she does is game, but should I increase the size for that reason alone?
If I recall correctly, the old platter drives started to slow down as they filled up.

Thanks again!

Nestor · March 2017

tjbhunter wrote: »

Thank you RedWarrior.
Follow up question... Does an SSD suffer in performance when its reaching it max capacity, like a mechanical or "platter" as you call it (never heard that term for a mechanical HD before)? My wife's SSD is floating around 80-85%... Its not really changing much, as all she does is game, but should I increase the size for that reason alone?
If I recall correctly, the old platter drives started to slow down as they filled up.

Thanks again!

You can get closer to capacity on a SSD, but you still want to avoid going over 90%. Its more the OS gets upset and I did notice weirdness when I went over 90% on my SSD.

Also, increasing the size of an SSD is beyond easy. All decent drives come with cloning software. You pop in the bigger drive, tell the software to clone the drive to the larger one and 5 minutes later your up and running on your new drive. No need to reinstall anything. Then you can reformat the old drive, and make it your Temp/My Documents drive as you really don't want a lot of Read/Writs on an SSD. Use a platter for mass storage of media files.

RedWarrior72 · March 2017

tjbhunter wrote: »

Thank you RedWarrior.
Follow up question... Does an SSD suffer in performance when its reaching it max capacity, like a mechanical or "platter" as you call it (never heard that term for a mechanical HD before)? My wife's SSD is floating around 80-85%... Its not really changing much, as all she does is game, but should I increase the size for that reason alone?
If I recall correctly, the old platter drives started to slow down as they filled up.

Thanks again!

I call it a platter drive as if you take one apart, it has stacked "platters" that hold the information that is on them. As far as performance when reaching capacity, have to say that I have never noticed any thing different on mine, but it is the one without the OS. The one with most of my games is at 94% full and it has all my steam games and a few more, and I never had any problems with it. As far as with the OS, not sure myself as I have yet to hit 80% with it.

Nestor wrote: »

You can get closer to capacity on a SSD, but you still want to avoid going over 90%. Its more the OS gets upset and I did notice weirdness when I went over 90% on my SSD.

Also, increasing the size of an SSD is beyond easy. All decent drives come with cloning software. You pop in the bigger drive, tell the software to clone the drive to the larger one and 5 minutes later your up and running on your new drive. No need to reinstall anything. Then you can reformat the old drive, and make it your Temp/My Documents drive as you really don't want a lot of Read/Writs on an SSD. Use a platter for mass storage of media files.

Mass storage is what I use my old drives for, read and write may not as bad on SSD's as it was on mechanical drives as nothing is physically done to the drive., but still why take a chance