I'm not very familiar with newer PC storage technology and could use some straightforward advice. My current system has a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, an RTX 3060, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Everything generally runs well, but I'm running out of storage and game or even Windows startup times have begun to feel slow. My drives are a 256GB ADATA SU800 SATA SSD and a 1TB WDC WD10EZEX hard drive. Games such as League of Legends and SnowRunner are currently installed across those drives. Would adding an NVMe M.2 SSD noticeably improve loading times? If so, what would be the best way to organize the drives—move the SSD's files to the NVMe drive, move less frequently used files from the hard drive to the SATA SSD, and keep the hard drive mainly for bulk storage? I'm considering asking for a PC-related upgrade as a birthday gift, so recommendations on capacity and what to look for would also be helpful.
3 Answers
For actively played games, use an SSD at minimum, and an NVMe M.2 drive is a convenient upgrade if your motherboard has an available M.2 slot. Modern games can feel noticeably worse from a hard drive because of long loading screens, texture pop-in, and stuttering while assets are being loaded. Keep the HDD for movies, backups, installers, and games you are storing but not currently playing.
Your motherboard should have at least one M.2 slot, though it’s worth checking the exact model and its manual before buying. A 1TB or 2TB NVMe SSD would be a much more practical upgrade than trying to keep modern games on the hard drive. NVMe drives are faster than SATA SSDs, but the biggest improvement in your situation will come from moving games off the HDD; the difference between SATA SSD and NVMe is usually less dramatic for ordinary gaming.
The 256GB SATA SSD is also simply too small for a modern Windows and game library. You don’t necessarily need to clone everything immediately: install the NVMe drive, format it, then move or reinstall Windows and your frequently played games there. Leave the SATA SSD for additional games or applications, and use the hard drive for bulk storage. Make sure important files are backed up before migrating anything.
I hadn’t realized the capacity of the SATA SSD was such a limitation too. Increasing to 1TB or 2TB should give me much more room and let me avoid constantly moving games around.
That makes sense. I’m thinking of using the new NVMe drive for Windows and regularly played games, the 256GB SATA SSD for overflow, and the HDD for less frequently used files and archived games.