Mount games on NVME or separate SSD?

[Larsenex]

Greetings Tech folks,

I am going to build a new computer. I was going to use a 256 gig NVME as my boot drive and keep only windows on it. Nothing else. Then get a Samsung 960 Pro and mount my games and my steam library there. Finally a 4 TB HDD for Videos, music and downloads, docs and pictures as well as the desktop mapped there.

Will I still get good performance by having my games mounted on an SSD even though its not the same drive as where windows is mounted?

 

[Montana]

You can put it on the SSD but you want to add partitions so it isn't in the same partition as Windows. This can be done using a free program called EaseUS. The partition will show up as another drive. You can name it whatever you want to. If you plan to install multiple games I'd suggest doing it on a seperate drive.

 

[Larsenex]

Thanks, I was going to get an NVME drive of about 256 gigs and install windows there. In addition, I was going to get Samsungs 960 pro 2.5" drive (512 gigs) and use that exclusively for games and lastly a 4 TB HDD which is where everything else gets installed, the downloads directory, docs directory and my games directory. My question is will I get the same performance on games keeping them on their own SSD drive rather then sharing the same drive space on the NVME drive?

 

[ErikNZ]

I don't think there will be any performance gains by installing games on the main NVME drive vs. a fast SSD. I generally prefer to keep my Windows OS and games on separate partitions or even drives, in my case each have their own SSD with another set of 7200 RPM SATA HDDs for cold storage, e.g. holding data I don't need to access daily.

However, one of my WD 1TB Caviar (Black) drives is configured as an additional Steam Library drive for games I don't play too often. When playing these games, the loading times aren't as fast as those installed on my SSD of course but once in-game I really can't tell if the game is running off a SSD or HDD. It certainly shouldn't impact FPS I think?

 

[Montana]

My suggestion would be to buy a smaller SSD for the OS only. Then do as you plan with the drive for your games.

 

[Larsenex]

Thanks this was exactly the info I was looking for. I think 256 gigs may be over kill just for windows but I found its better to have too much room then to suddenly need to have more. ErikNZ your advice is excellent. One drive for Windows, One drive SSD for Games and a platter drive for storage.

 

[Scannow]

This threads conclusion still stands true, I just wanted to add . Maybe someone would prove me wrong, if so I will move my games off of my SSD to the 1TB Nvme. The only difference I could find in game is the extreme fast loading of maps putting me in the lobby before anyone else. That is literally it, FPS was neither changed up or down.