So my HDD (1TB) where I kept my pc games (Battlenet, Steam, Minecraft and such) seems to be corrupt or something (CHKDSK doesn’t bring up any problem but games or launchers sometimes won’t open or load too slow until I reinstall/verify them; I already formated it but nothing changed) so I am being forced to replace it and I am tempted to buy a SSD, but before I do I have a couple of questions:
-How worth it will it be in the long term? Since it’s for some games that will get updates constantly-ish (Like Overwatch, Terraria, Deep Rock Galactic, their own launchers, mods and others) I fear it dying sooner than expected (way before the expected 15 years mark).
-How cheap could I go? I was thinking about a NS100, a CS900 or a WD Green (no ADATA because their SSD have failed me previously).
-What brands/models are decent/acceptable if I have to keep looking for alternatives?
If it’s not a good idea I’ll just get a new HDD, but I’d like to know before I decide anything.
A SSD generally ages more gracefully than a HDD, you should worry about the opposite. Game update wires will be a fraction of expected writes before degradation matters.
Most SSDs are good for 1.5 million hours or up to 10 years, whichever comes first. It’s miles ahead of a 3.5" 7200 HDD in speed, longevity, and you throw it on the floor and it won’t destroy your data.
I’m not sure if there are any practical arguments for not upgrading to an SSDPrice is the only practical argument.
Yes, I have not had any game installed on a HDD for many years now. And you’ll most likely get a new SSD in say 5-7 years anyway…
No I reckon you’ll probably replace in 5-7 years time because you’d want a larger one (game install size is starting to really get up there lately) and possibly to also get a faster SSD in the years to come? 5-7 years with PC parts is a long time. Nothing to do with failure at all.
I hope you mean due to unoptimized AAA games and not due to hardware failure, I really can’t be replacing disks as if it was nothing so if it’s due to failure I rather stick to HDD for a longer while
SSDs and HDDs have similar life spans now, with some SSDs even having better longevity if you’re willing to pay for it. The only reason to get HDDs now is if you need cheap bulk storage. For most people getting a $50 1TB SSD will be all they ever need.
SSDs have a lifespan of 1.5 million hours vs 50k hours and 10 years vs 5 years. Unless you’re buying enterprise HDDs, an SSD is far superior in longevity
Honestly I’ve yet to have a SSD fail on me and I’ve been using some for 10 years now. Newer ones are even more reliable.
It happened to me with one ADATA the last year and it died within months of use so I blame it more on faulty components than it being SSD
Yeah that sounds like a bath tub curve failure. Better early than late
If you have the budget for it, get an SSD. You will never look back. Even if you never open a game, the difference in pc boot and application load times alone makes it worth it. Not to mention the increased life span, as others have mentioned. If budget is a serious concern, you can consider a fusion drive. Fusion drives have a segment using the same memory cells as SSD for frequently used programs, and a traditional spinning disk HDD section for affordable storage. Especially if you are looking to upgrade to 2+TB, a fusion drive can bridge the financial gap. But my personal recommendation would be to splurge a bit on a full SSD, and get at least 2TB if at all possible. Files sizes get bigger every year, and if you intend this to be your only storage the extra breathing room will be a huge QOL difference.
You’ll get a long life span with a modern SSD compared to a HDD.
Here’s a quick lifespan formula you can use to calculate about how many years until its completely done: (Write cycles * Capacity) / (SSD factor * Data Written per year)
Personally my Samsung 1tb 840 pro sata ssd has been running as a game drive since the end of 2014. Damn near 9 years. I’ve never seen a HDD live that long outside of enterprise use, even then it’s rare.
More so, the performance is night and day difference.
for updates, 100%. i went from a 5400rpm 4tb hdd to a 4tb ssd and the speed difference in redownloading and updating it is amazing. well worth the upgrade.
Personally I feel it’s worth it. If you stick with a name brand like Samsung you will get a long life out of it. The loading times are noticeably faster on SSDs.
It might be a second or two but idk about ‘noticeably’ faster. I have games on both.
Unless you’re still on Sata 2, everything should load faster. Like up to 10x faster
If I had an SSD that ran the same speed as a HDD I’d want a refund lol
Samsung goes beyond my budget, and yeah that last part is why I began to wonder about the upgrade.
Is it worth to replace HDD with SSD? It is and it was for last 10 years if you can afford it. Nowdays you pay 25 €/tb for HDD and 50+ €/tb for SSD. Higher capacity is getting cheaper on HDD, but its getting much more expensive on SSD. Since you are fine with 1TB I would get SSD for sure. If you need storage just for media files or backup then get huge HDD instead.
I had samsung evo failure. Now I just buy the cheapest one. My OCZ vertex 3 120gb is still working fine, same with all cheap patriot p200 and simmilar. Warranty is your friend and you just need luck after that. Well backup all important data no matter is it on HDD or SSD
If you’re on a budget that WD Green drive is a great choice. They get slept on because they’re ultimately second to Samsung in the storage space, but they make great drives and have been solid since before I was even born (I’m 23). I actually ran a 1TB WD HDD in 2013 that only recently started making ticking noises. I proactively replaced it since SSDs are stupid cheap nowadays, but I probably could’ve run it for a while longer before having any issues.
WD green are not good HDDs. Based on how many failures I’ve seen, they are good for 2 to 3 years tops. And with a failure rate higher than any other HDDs I’ve seen.
Do not buy WD green. If you got more than 5 years out of that HDD it’s a small miracle.
WD Greens are most commonly SSDs. They do make WD Green HDDs but they’re not common, and the one OP had picked out was a 1 TB WD Green SSD.
The lifetime of modern SSDs, even for frequently updated games, is comparable to an HDD. The game updates themselves will also not be a major contributor to the lifetime writes of an SSD. More than that, though, is the performance improvement. If you have been gaming on only an HDD you would not believe the improvement in performance that switching to an SSD will immediately net you. Even if the lifetime of an SSD was noticeably lesser, which I reiterate is not the case, the switch to an SSD is absolutely worth it every time.
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Yes it is worth it as it is the opposite SSDs have a much longer Lifespan than HDDs
I switched to a Samsung SSD five or six years ago and it’s been great. On my ancient gaming rig the load time improvements have been dramatic.
I’d do it again in a second.
You don’t say whether you boot from the HDD or have a separate SSD for booting. If you boot from the HDD, then an SSD is a must. The speed increase for everything is incredible.
If you just use the HDD for storage, I would still upgrade. I’ve got a 3TB HDD and a 1TB SSD for storage, and the difference in speed between them is huge. The HDD can slow my whole system down when it’s being thrashed, while the SSD transfers files faster without slowing anything down.
It’s honestly a no brainer as long as you can afford the size you need 👍
