I have an internal SSD where I keep all my games and programs, but I've started recording gameplay and one of those videos is massive—90GB! I'm thinking about getting an external HDD to store not just my videos but also music, documents, and some less-frequently played games that I'd rather not uninstall. I'm generally patient and don't mind waiting a bit for things to load, but I'm curious how significant the speed difference really is between SSDs and HDDs. How slow are we talking about?
4 Answers
The speed difference is pretty wild. A top SSD can hit around 7000MB/s, while even the fastest HDDs max out at 200-250MB/s. Not to mention SSDs have much lower latency, which impacts how quickly you can access files, especially random ones.
HDDs are fine for storage, but if you're after quick access and performance, an SSD is crucial. It's worth investing in an SSD if you can; the load times will be significantly better!
Thanks for the perspective! I'm definitely leaning towards getting an HDD for now but planning to save up for an SSD in the near future.
HDDs are definitely slower, like, really slower. Some games might take minutes to load instead of seconds, which can be a real buzzkill! They work great for bulk storage, but for gameplay, SSDs have become essential.
Yeah, the speed really is night and day. It's almost like comparing watching a video in 480p vs. 4K! With HDDs, you'll notice the waiting time for loading screens and that can totally impact your gaming experience.
For storing large files like gameplay videos, an HDD is totally fine. I've put all my recorded content on an HDD. It won’t be as fast for things like editing, though; keep that on an SSD for better performance!
That's a solid approach! I use my HDD for archived videos and only edit on my SSD.
Exactly! For VMs and anything requiring quick access, SSDs are the way to go. An HDD just doesn't cut it anymore for that kind of usage.