Would a HDD be beneficial for storing games. Would booting games from a HDD only use my processor? Read desc for more

Submitted by ironshadowy t3_yiahmc in gaming

Hi guys, so i want to game on my laptop, but do not want to further defrade my ssd life span.

Pretty sure the ssd i have is known for dying quickly, and plus i dont really have enough space for games. However, i do have alot if HDDs lying around.

I want to ask if i boot games through my HDD, would the game just use my ram, cpu etc and not hugely impact the ssd?

Im mainly asking because i used to game on this computer and gaming literally killed the ssd inside of it, and im pretty sure it also killed the NvME drive reader, making my motherboard useless.

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theonlyone38 t1_iuhnkc2 wrote

Fallacy. Read/write warnings are for server grade hardware that does the amount of read/writes you do in a year in a couple hours.

You'll likely never reach the read/writes required to kill a drive. Its much more likely that you just had a defective drive from the onset.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuhnqsv wrote

Well i had a surface. After the drive died (first BSODS, then no detection in the first place) i searched online and it seems that its a common fault for the ssd to die that quick. It was only 2 years

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theonlyone38 t1_iuhnwqs wrote

Again, that is just poor quality not anything to do with read writes.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuho8io wrote

Hmm, so the ssd line up is just bad?

After further inspection though of my dead pc, the mother board straight up refused to read any jsjsnndjdndnjdjdndjxunejsudnssd. So even so, would my motherboard be at risk still if i run from a HDD. Sorry if my questions sound stupid.

Now that you do mention it, after i purchased a new motherboard, i might look into opening my computer up again and replacing the ssd with my previous old one and see if it was actually working fine

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theonlyone38 t1_iuhoh6c wrote

Picking a good brand is important, especially since some brands have been caught lying about their speeds and swapping out memory types without telling anyone.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuhqt3q wrote

It is a samsung ssd. More specifically the SSD that comes with a surface pro 4

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Hot-Wallaby-6402 t1_iuhpm5t wrote

After reading the other comments, the ssd brand is important for the quality of memory you get and what failure rate you get. What I suggest is getting a replacement SSD by a good brand, crucial, Samsung Evo are just 2,there are other good brands these are just examples.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuhqvih wrote

I had an original samsung drive that comes with a surface pro 4. Replaced the failed drive with the exact same make/model.

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kicks_your_arse t1_iuhtodq wrote

I have been running a 250 gb samsung 840 EVO for like nearly 10 years. According to magician ithas 54.7 TB written to it so far and is still classed as 'Good'.

There's nothing to worry about, you'll never wear it to the point you need to be concerned. Not without trying very hard.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuhus84 wrote

What about m.2 NvME drives?

Looking online, your drive seems to be a SATA one. Would NvME drives have a shorter life span due to their size

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kicks_your_arse t1_iuhv55t wrote

Fair point, not quite sure about that. Just a comment that it was my OS drive and I always ran my favourite games from it so it got a fair bit of regular wear. I know there's definitely long term limits but I think as consumers we really shouldn't even be thinking about wear cycles and limits. Your case sounds unusual and I think you can mostly be safe in the assumption that the disk will last the life of the device.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuhvo2n wrote

Just a similar question. If i did run games off a HDD, would it effectively use the ssd less? All i want to know is if the read/ writes of the game is not going towards the ssd.

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Cyphonism t1_iuhy8xv wrote

That would indeed save wear and tear on your SSD.

For general SSD use, reading from them causes virtually no wear and tear. Writing causes some wear and tear, but at a very slow rate as long as the drive is not very full. Keeping at least 10 percent free is good, more if you can spare it.

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuhyhiv wrote

Ah ok. So my ssd doesnt have storage for games but even though little wear and tear is seen with games on ssds, ill mainly stick to HDDs for peace of mind. Thanks for your help, really appreciate it

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pseudopad t1_iuk1nlb wrote

Life spans don't drop with capacity

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ironshadowy OP t1_iuk256r wrote

I dont mean the capacity, i mean the actual size of an m.2 ssd. They are considerably smaller than SATA ssds

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bideodames t1_iui59p2 wrote

I usually store most of my games on HDD as the stuff I play comes from pre-2015 mostly. Anything modern or that uses ray tracing I put on SSD. You ain't gonna wear it out unless it was faulty to begin with

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