Should Windows and games go on the NVMe drive or separate SSDs?
Asked by
MellowCedar47
I have an older 120GB SATA SSD rated around 550MB/s and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive. Should I install Windows and the drivers on the SATA SSD while keeping games on the NVMe, or put everything on the NVMe? Could using the faster drive for Windows, shader caches, and game files improve stuttering or 1% and 0.1% lows?
Answers
That 120GB SSD is pretty cramped, especially since it is best not to fill an SSD past roughly 80–85%. Use the NVMe as the main drive instead. You can create a separate partition for Windows and another for games if you like, but keep backups because reinstalling Windows can still go wrong if the wrong partition is selected.
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Put Windows, drivers, applications, and games on the NVMe drive. It is fast enough to handle everything at once, and separating the operating system onto the old SATA SSD will not provide a gaming benefit.
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The NVMe may make Windows start a little faster, but storage speed rarely makes a noticeable difference in most games once they are running. Frame-time lows and stuttering are usually affected more by the CPU, GPU, memory, game engine, and shader compilation than by the drive.
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A separate games partition can be convenient, but it is not required for performance. If you heavily mod games, keeping their files outside the Windows Program Files folders may make mod managers easier to use, but that is mainly an organizational choice.
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MellowCedar47: So I can reinstall Windows on one NVMe partition without deleting the games stored on the other partition?
QuietMaple61: Yes, provided you select only the Windows partition during setup and leave the games partition untouched. Still back up anything important first, since partitions do not protect against drive failure or an installation mistake.