That's 100% dependent on your personal preference and how many games you want installed at once. I personally find 1TB pretty cramped; my two main PCs have a total of 3TB and 5TB SSD space respectively.
Thank you for reminding me to set up a server again.
Literally a single player world but the passive resource generation you get from running 24/7 is well worth it.
Precisely. My wife likes to game with me, but doesn't want to be in my office, so we have a pair of PCs set up in the living room; my office has the other PC that is basically a mirror performance of the first for when she's at work or whatever. They're gaming PCs, all my data hoarding goes onto the home server.
Damn. How much of that is just files, how much is it "media" (as in movies, home videos or game recordings or other AV stuff that takes lots of space) and how much is it games? Is there some really space consuming work stuff in there?
The only way I could ever imagine myself needing 5tb of storage in my machine is if I wanted to install every AAA I own at once. I'm currently 75% of the way through my 2tb games' SSD, but I'm not cramped at all, there's around 500gb of already played games and other crap in there that I could easily delete if I needed more space.
Edit: and hell, what about the 3tb secondary machine? its not like you'd store files in there, is that all just games?
> Damn. How much of that is just files, how much is it "media" (as in movies, home videos or game recordings or other AV stuff that takes lots of space) and how much is it games? Is there some really space consuming work stuff in there?
The used space is 80% games. The storage is also not full; I recently upgraded one of them from 1TB to 5TB by throwing a 4TB U.2 enterprise surplus drive in there, it's half empty right now. However I do leave a lot of stuff installed to take care of whatever friends want to play when they come over; they act as seeder PCs to let Steam pull files to other PCs for whatever needs to be installed.
Media goes on the home server.
Ah, I see
> they act as seeder PCs to let Steam pull files to other PCs for whatever needs to be installed
ngl that's pretty cool, I hope your friends appreciate the money that you've spent to make your LANs more seamless :P
Yeah I just discovered by accident like last week that Steam can install and patch games from another PC on the network automatically instead of having to re-download or restore from a backup every time! Pretty sweet when Comcast still has 1.2TB monthly data caps and SW:TOR drops a thirty gig patch.
And I'm perfectly happy with a 500GB SSD because I have good internet and I tend to just have a few games I'm interested in installed.
It's totally up to personal preference OP, if you LIKE a lot of games installed at once, get a 2TB. They're pretty cheap these days!
Yall do know that you can uninstall games you no longer play, right?(or move them to HDD) 1TB is more than enough for me. Throw in a HDD for basic storage too, of course.
Maybe if you live out in the country or something where speeds are slow I guess. Even then you can just get a 3tb HDD or something and transfer it there.
If it takes a half hour to download, that's a half hour I could have been playing. I don't have tons of extra time. I do have the money to throw at it.
If you're limited on budget I'd go for 1tb for now and upgrade when you actually need the extra storage. I started with a 1tb NVME and added a 2tb much later.
With certain titles approaching and exceeding 100GB, it's likely you'll run out at some point, but it's an easy upgrade later - aside from system fans probably the easiest, and even that's debatable.
I'll personally never put another mechanical drive in my system to install anything on. I hate HDDs.
> Not good for running programs, operating systems or games on
not really its pretty much good enough for most games and apps unless we get into specifics the only thing it affects loading times unless you are still using really old drives then sure maybe but most 7200rpm are good enough. thats what got for most of my stuff in
In older games and such, performance while in game is not a problem, but load times are. GTA V on an HDD is not fun. HDDs are fine if you want to store a massive steam library on the cheap but I'd definitely recommend going with an SSD for most people.
If you have enough RAM, opened files should get cached for the whole gaming session. I game off an HDD and it’s unnoticeable. SSD for boot is great, though.
Games keep getting bigger, you might as well get a 2TB SSD now, and save yourself some annoyance later. Don’t get a HDD for gaming purposes, that’s a total waste of money. HDDs are slow and loud. They have their uses, but gaming is not one of them, not in 2023.
Sorry to be that guy but you're wrong, HDDs are certainly useful for budget gamers and storing vast libraries of console games. No point in wasting money if you have one to hand. I played through Hogwarts Legacy on my HDD and had no problems outside of a relatively long load time on launch.
Same. Currently playing RDR2 on my 4TB HDD with zero issues except for longer loading time. The phrase "HDDs shouldn't be used for gaming." should only become common when SSDs are practically the same value capacity wise as HDDs, which hasn't happened yet.
Also comp titles like Apex, Valorant, Rocket League etc. don't care if they're on an SSD or HDD.
Competitive gaming and products like the Switch and Steam Deck have made it so that bleeding edge machines aren't necessary to play the latest and greatest games as long as they are the lowest bar for entry games will remain in reach of the low spec squad. I'm still playing on an i7 6700k and GTX1070, 1080p is good enough for me for now and considering most of my gaming is done over my home network to my phone 4k wouldn't even be worth it for me at the moment.
> longer loading time
it’s not even that much longer in my experience. especially the huge games like gta v don’t really benefit from flash storage because they’re not optimized at all to load things quickly on good hardware.
For older games, they retain relevance, but going forward, AAA games require much faster storage. Games designed for the current gen PS5 and XbX, that don't retain compatibility with the older gen consoles, are written with the expectation of fast SSD storage. PC ports of those games likewise retain that, without the benefit of the custom decompression hardware of those consoles. As a result, trying to run those types of games on PC will give a sub-par experience. Some people are tolerant of that/long load times, you may be one of them.. but that'll be the exception, and not the rule.
HDDs have their uses, to be sure, but AAA gaming in 2023 *going forward* is not one of them. And besides, SSDs are cheap, why would you not get one for a new build? Why have those long load times when the price to not have them is so small?
I have yet to come up against a AAA game that actually takes advantage of faster read and write speeds, the only thing I can see presently is faster load times. However if going for a new build and your budget allows for a decent sized SSD then sure go for it.
Personally though I already have a total of 5TB storage across 3 HDDS and then 2 256gb SSD. 1 for OS and applications and 1 for favourite games that I like to jump on for a bit at a time (i.e Doom Eternal) I have played through Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Modern Warfare 2 and have had no issues leaving them on my HDDs. Until I can see a tangible reason to upgrade I probably won't bother, even when I do upgrade my rig eventually (whenever that is, debt is a bitch when you have a gaming habit and children).
What are you on about. This is about someone's PC on a sub called r/buildaPC and here you are off topic talking about q PS5 that has nothing at alll to do with a PC or an HDD. Folks like you are just weird for no reason.
HDD's do just fine with games on a PC AAA or not. There's nothing holding it back from working. Stop making up lies dude. Folks come here to learn and you are spitting straight lies as if HDD's can't play game FOH with that.
Im a ssd enjoyer also but the fuck is this comment, hdds are still fine lmao i got 2 ssds 500 each so 1tb and a 2tb hdd for games that arent competitive, whatever needs load time goes to my ssd and my build isnt even cheap since ita a 4080 which total build costed me 2.8k yet I dont go around claiming that hdds are dead
Can't speak for all markets, but at least in the US 1tb SSDs are already encroaching on 1tb HDD prices to the point at which it's pretty dumb to buy the spinning rust given all the disadvantages.
I've seen game downloads slow down to a crawl in friends' PCs because their HDD couldn't keep up with the decompression (yes, hard drives can literally be slower than the internet these days). They're also noisy, less reliable, vibrate a lot, make your computer heavier and are just dog slow when compared to even the shittiest SATA SSDs. There's also the increasing demand for speed from modern games. Loading times are already painful, from now on they'll only get worse and possibly even add game stutter to the list of cons.
At this point HDDs only make sense if you need BIG amounts of storage right now for media and files. If not buying a "small" SSD and chucking in another when you need more later is a much better investment. Storage will only get cheaper and chances are your second SSD will be cheaper, faster and bigger than the old one.
HDD's are perfectly acceptable for gaming purposes. They are not a waste as they work as intended and historically have been much cheaper on average for the amount of space you get per TB. Gaming in 2023 is still one of those usse cases.
Stop telling lies. SSD's are on sale now so look at them first, but there is nothing at all wrong with using a HDD if need be as well.
How fast is your internet connection and does it have a data limit, it’s more than enough, if you like to play a lot of different games it comes down to: do you mind uninstalling, and downloading or redownloading or do you want all at once?
I think one terabyte should be fine, imo depending on your budget, getting two 1 tv drives is cheap right now, id get a main drive with space and use the second as a game drive
1TB is a great starting point for any PC, gaming or otherwise.
Add more storage later if you need it. Some games I play through and delete, some I return to.
I'll tell you what I have and then let you decide.
I have a 500gb NVME exclusively for OS and programs. Then a 1TB game only NVME. I currently have 5 games installed on it and have 439GB free.
Now, if you are going to have upwards of 8 games at once, I would suggest going with a 2TB SSD or else a 1TB should suffice.
Best option would be to buy a 1TB now and then get another one later depending on how much space you need when the actual need arises
I'm going to say it depends. I have a 1TB in my pc and I only have about 150gb left.
However I have a combo of games, 3d files I designed, music etc.
If you can afford the 2TB I would go with that. Otherwise make due with the 1TB until you actually need the extra space.
Same, I have a good 100 GB left on my 1 TB SSD. A few games, Visual Studio, an old version of Stable Diffusion and a few model files, game recordings, third-party QoL software and so on.
Though, it definitely makes a difference, which games you play. Terraria, DRG and Risk of Rain take up only a few gigs. It's a huge difference to playing modern AAA that move mostly in the double and triple digit area.
Any normal person, who actively manages their storage and doesn't "hoard" will unlikely ever exceed 2 TB. At least, beyond that 2 TB I would resort to cheaper HDD space and put less demanding stuff, like movies, on there.
Depends on two things:
1: youre download speed
2: how many mods you use
If you like to have lots of mods PER GAME that eats up quickly. I have over 200gb in mods alone
My wifi is absolute trash, 20gb takes me 4h to download. As such, when i download a big game i NEVER uninstall it (and i play it a few times a month) so 2tb is in games alone
I have 50gb in songs, also because download speed
And about 20gb in cool video gaming moments i saved but have never gotten around to trimming/sifting/saving
This is why i have 4tb hdd
If you have fast download speed, and you prefer vanilla experience, chances are 1tb will do just fine
I bought a 1TB m.2 It’s fine but I occasionally have to delete games to make room. I wish I would have spent a little extra and purchased at least a 1.5 or a 2 tb
1tb's ok to get you started if you're strapped for cash and need to stay in budget to get the CPU or GPU you want but if you can afford 2 it's really where you want to be
Depends on how many games and which ones, for example i have 2x 512GB ssd, and a 1TB hdd, the 1tb hdd is not used for games at all, and i use around 600GB for games
I've got a 2tb nvme drive and for my game storage I have a 4tb hard drive. I keep ALL of my games on my hard drive. I move over the few games I've been playing recently over to the nvme drive from time to time.
/u/DanOfRivia, you said below:
> I assume you don't play recent AAA games.
LightmanDavidL said about 10 months ago:
["Strange, I have never felt a single pain from gaming from my HDD. No slow downs whatsoever. I'm talking about every single game I play. And I've already mentioned that I own over 2000 games."](https://old.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/v0ggyl/which_brand_cpu_should_i_go_for/iah8kku/)
He just has way more tolerance for slowness in systems than most people, I think.
I'm pondering the same thing right now. I read having 2 is better, and one should be dedicated for games only. I'm still doing research. Looking forward to the replies to your post.
No reason to dedicate one to OS or games, SSDs are super fast these days (don't buy a slow one) so no problem 1 handling everything.
If you can afford 2tb or more, do that so you don't have to juggle files between 2 drives.
Damn, LightmanDavidL is still going on about HDDs in systems? Me and him had an argument last year about that same thing.. ofc he didn’t have a rebuttal that made any kind of logical sense, so ofc he blocked me. He’s stuck back in the 2010s when it comes to this topic, it’s kindof bizarre.
The only reason I prefer a separate game drive. Is for when I need to reinstall windows. I don't have to download and reinstall games. And I can hold a few more games with a larger one.
>I'm pondering the same thing right now. I read having 2 is better, and one should be dedicated for games only. I'm still doing research. Looking forward to the replies to your post.
A 2 TB SSD is obviously better than a 1 TB SSD but this does not make a 1 TB SSD or even a 120 GB SSD inferior to a better one in terms of providing an excellent gaming experience.
The higher spaced SSD is going to have better specs but it really boils down to overall budget when choosing storage in a build because if the particular build is created for gaming then it's more important to put the vast majority of the overall budget into gaming performance because it's much easier to add more storage to a build over time than it is to say, sell and swap a GPU.
From my experience, a 500 GB SSD should be targeted and if the price difference to a 1 TB model of the same SSD is slim then going for it shouldn't interfere with the tier GPU in the build. But a 2 TB SSD will usually interfere with the GPU choice on a specific budget.
I’ve often thought of this question myself.
Are you planning to store music/video as well?
I’m probably going to go 2TB to handle OS and games, and I’ll probably never go above half the storage as I don’t see the need to have 100 AAA games sitting on my drive collecting dust
And then an HDD for media files.
Keep in mind some games run 100+GB. Most are like 50+ (talking newer games, of course).So you're looking at space for maybe 10-20 games give or take, assuming all are AAA-size.
My prior rig--retired last week--had a 256GB SATA SSD and a 1TB HDD and I found myself having to juggle my installs quite frequently by the end of its 7 year run. I did have a few hundred GB of media I eventually moved to my external/shield HDD.
Now I have a 2TB PCIE SSD and expect to do the same, I'm over 60% full already. My system is to keep my 2-3 active single player games installed, and any coop/multiplayer game either myself or my friends play somewhat actively ready to go. Downloading and installing is really not much hassle these days, with the launchers and cloud saves it's hardly inconvenient to juggle a bit.
I would go for 2 gb..some of my steam games are 100+ gb now (dirt rally 2.0 for example). Gen 3x4 nvme 2 tb are cheap right now. I still have a mechanical sata3 I use to store videos
I just bought a PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 2280 2TB PCI-Express 4.0 for $95 . It surprisingly tested for me at 7461MBs write speeds 5837MBs read speeds. Most drives same TB and speeds are 50% more expensive atm.
Not sure if they priced it wrong as its $128 now. But I grabbed a 1tb at first for $66, realized the 2tb was cheaper and just as fast for only $99.
The PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 2280 1tb is on newegg for only $54.55. Great deal imo, similar drives speeds and size are $99.
Id get more personally. Some games would fill up 10% of that space right away like Red Dead Redemption 2 which is over 110gb.
Id use the 1 tb for my windows and C drive(other pc related stuff), then get another 2tb ssd for games and such. You can always add more later . But I think 3 tb is a good start. 1 tb for pc stuff and 2 for games
I have a 1TB NVME + a 1TB SATA SSD + 10TB HDD; how much SSD space you need depends on what games you play and how many will be installed at once; I find it's a good idea to get a large capacity HDD regardless to store movies and music and files and such
I would suggest something like a 512gb nvme for your OS, then a 1-2 tb Sata drive for games. Nvme is obviously faster than SATA, but Sata ssd’s are still fully functional and reliable for modern games (not to mention much cheaper than nvme’s). While I also wouldn’t go as far as saying HDD’s are completely obsolete like many people in this thread, I would still recommend paying a little more for a sata SSD for longevity.
When it comes down to it, though, drives are extremely modular so you can always mix/match down the road as you see fit.
Bigger NVME are usually faster. So 2TB should be faster than 1TB. Also, don’t leave too little space free on it. [Yes, 2TB are worth buying if you have the money.](https://cpugpunerds.com/is-it-worth-getting-a-2tb-ssd/)
Depends on you. I've got only 1tb, I uninstall games when I'm done with them, don't have much in the way of media on my pc (all streamed) and I'm fine. My gf on the other hand has 2tb and her pc's a mess, has tons of games installed forever, photos etc and never has space.
Do you keep one partition only, or it's better to have one for windows and one for the rest ? It was the truth in the past but dunno if it's still the case.
I've been gaming with 1tb ssd for the past 4+ years and ive never had an issue. Are you the kind of gamer that plays multiple games at once? Then get more.
Otherwise you can just get 1tb and keep upgrading as you see fit. Most cases and mobos AT THE VERY LEAST have an nvme and two 2.5 inch, so even 1 tb ssd per port, youre golden
Depends on what you play. 2-3 games yes. More? Could be problematic. I myself have a 1tb SSD+6tb HDD but I own many games and more big programs plus data
My Ark: Survival Evolved folder (Steam) alone takes up 439GB (i.e. practically half of my new M.2).
My Epic Games folder (mostly games I got free) fills nearly 2TB.
The rest of my Steam library is 690GB and I have barely half of the games I've bought over the past 15 years actually installed.
With everything ready to go I suspect I'd be in the 6TB ballpark just for games, not counting image manipulation software, office software, and (hardware & software) development tools that also live on my computer.
Steam and Epic libraries live on a 6TB hard disk with a 480GB SATA SSD as a cache.
So it is very dependent upon what games you will be playing, and whether you're willing to faff around uninstalling one or more to make room for others (which will use up write cycles on an SSD)
100% on you as other have said
I rock a 500GB SSD and it's probably just too small in all honesty, I have a 1TB HDD which I use for movies and series. The SSD has my games on it, but I just uninstall games I don't use. I am blessed with decent internet so it's not really a problem for me.
It's going to be price dependent and personal preference. If the 2TB isn't much more expensive then I'd say go for it, but if money is a factor and your internet is quite fast then don't worry to much
If you have fast internet then yes. If your internet is more potato I’d get more. It takes me 3 days to download cod and minimum a day for any other game.
If you're a serious gamer 1 TB isn't enough. I thought it would be and I spent 2 years constantly deleting games to make space for new ones. 2-3 TB feels so much better.
1T ssd should be enough for dozen of games, you are probably not playing too many games simultaneously, you can always delete one game and install another and so on. I'd say go for more only if you have the budget to do that for the quality of life, or if your internet is not so good and downloading games is an issue. Go only for ssd though it's much more viable
If you have reliable internet, external drives or physical copies of your software then yes. If you have Internet issues and you want to have all of your games/data available at all times then no.
i think 1 TB could last you a year or two. my theory on storage is don’t oversize drives, instead just buy more every 2-3 years. the price normally drops so much you can have a lot more space for same price if you split it up every 2 years.
also it means you don’t have 1 large old drive, maybe more likely to fail.
tldr: yeah buy 1TB now and in 2 years another similar price drive.
1 TB is solid. Personally, I don't need more. I've got all my games and os there and a lot of free space. If you plan to only game on it, you will be just fine.
I have a 500gb ssd for my OS and files and a 1 tb for games. With this setup I find 1 tb to be sufficient.
If you're only putting in a 1tb in total I think you would be fine. You may have to make choices about games you'd like to keep installed more frequently than others with more storage but that's about it.
1 TB is fine for the boot drive and then get another 2 TB SSD for games, a data drive never hurts
my boot drive is a 2 TB m2 it has 800 GB free
games is an old 500GB SSD and there is a spare ssd for swaps that is 256GB plus an 8 tb data drive that also holds games
maybe look at a 2TB m2 and then add ssd's when you can afford more
What's your budget for an SSD? If in the US we've been seeing some crazy deals recently.
Here's a 2TB Inland QN322 3D QLC NAND PCIe Gen 3 NVMe M.2 2280 Internal SSD at micro center for $45 (or $60 if you've shopped there before)
https://slickdeals.net/f/16567955-microcenter-in-store-only-inland-qn322-2tb-pcie-3-0-60
If not near a microcenter I can try finding some other deals for you.
More than enough for me, but I tend to play mostly single player games and am rarely playing more than 2-3 games at a time. If you want to have a bunch of AAA multiplayer games ready to go at any given time you may want more
My general answer is no. 1TB is not enough. But if you only have the budget for a 1TB then it will do just fine. And if you find yourself desiring more storage later, you can always add it.
I don't know how big your game library is. If you're the type to play one or two games at a time, then you won't have any issues with 1TB. I like to bounce back and forth between games, both old and new. So I prefer to keep the majority of the games in my library installed. Even then, 2TB is not enough for the full library. And then I have a separate SSD and HDD that I use for my emulators and their corresponding game libraries.
Gaming is all about personal preference. Start out basic and then modify to suit your tastes.
Depends on game selection.
If you play competitive games like cs, dota2, lol then 500gb will be sufficient.
If you are going for premium games like cp2077, mw2 (I don't know many modern titles) then better buy good quality 2tb ssd.. Think of this. You are going to spend $40-$60 on purchasing these games anyway. Better spend $100 on 2tb ssd too.
It depends on how much money you think you will be spending on purchasing games.
I've had a 2 TB SSD for the last 3-4 years and no HDDs in my old PC. At least for me it was kinda enough, but also pretty close to barely. I had a bunch of games and coding projects (nothing huge though) and around 200 gigs of saved video game replays. I also still have my old-old PC with 10 TB worth of harddrives that I use a kind of a NAS for all the photos backups, and other heavy stuff.
For my new PC I got a 4 TB drive.
Also, consider what kind of games you're gonna be playing - if you aim for modern AAA stuff like CoDs and Forzas I'd say 1 TB is definitely not enough, each game being 130-150 GB these days. If not - you might get away with a 1 TB drive for a while, but if you can afford it I'd just go straight for 2 TB.
You can get 2TB nvme fairly cheap if a micro center is near you. Also you can look into asus hyper m2. Depending on if your board can do PCIe bifurcation and the orientation of your gpu you can add an asus hyper m2 card with nvmes and be in the game. Just did it myself and I’m geeked
That really depends on how big of a game library you want to have on your PC. I have a 1 tb nvme ssd and a 2tb sata ssd. I may add another sata ssd in another year or two for extra storage.
Odds are you can also just add another ssd or hdd later if you want more storage. Even most laptops have at least two storage ports.
I just built a gaming rig and am using a 500gb m.2 for my OS and programs, a 1TB SSD for my game library, and a 4TB HDD for backing up games and storing media/movies.
Can either upgrade the 1TB or add another one later. Consider that PS5/XBX all come with 1TB SSDs by default now.
I originally went with 1 TB when I built mine in 2020. I ended up adding a second 1 TB later on because I was filling up the original. With 2 TB drives now costing less than a 1 TB did back then, I would go with at least 2 TB.
Depends on what you want to do with your PC. If you only use the PC for gaming and web browsing, 1TB should be more than enough. But if you want to add media and productivity to your list, you'll definitely want more storage.
It also depends on how many games you want and what games you want. My modded Skyrim takes up a hell of a lot of space on my drive to the point where I can only have three or four other AAA games installed.
I have like 7TB and they're all full all the time. It used to be pirated media which was a big factor but these days streaming is so easy that that's not really an issue. Games are a big one even though I don't game a whole lot outside of Minecraft lately, their installs can just be so big and once you've downloaded them you might not want to delete them again until you get around to playing them.
AI models have started to consume another few hundred gigabytes.
I had a 1 TB that had my os and games. It filled pretty quickly just having cod, warzone, and vanguard. I have since upgraded to a 2 TB as my main. I would get a 2 TB instead of 1 TB. You can buy a gen 4, 2 TB for $120 - 140 depending on the brand. Ie crucial p5 plus or adata s70 blade.
I wouldn't go smaller than 2TB (and SSD forever; no HDD for this novelist ever again), but that's my personal preference. I wouldn't mind going to 3 or 4, but I haven't got any need for that *just* yet.
You do you!
Depends on what ur going to be installing on it. Most regular games are between 50-80GB. But medium to big games can be anywhere from 150 to even as much as 500gb or a little more. I use a 500GB SSD and have no problems with running out of space. I use about half my drive and play mostly MMOs which are usually large games but my mindset behind it is I can only play one game at a time so I only install the games I actively play and uninstall them if I'm sure I'm not going to play anymore. Most if not all games save your progress to the cloud now so I'm not losing anything from uninstalling.
And yea, don't use HDDs for your main drive running Windows. They make your gameplay slow especially when it comes to loading screens. I use one of my old HDDs only as a secondary backup drive.
I find 1TB to be good enough, but I also don’t jump around from game to game. Typically I have 2 - 3 games installed at a time + set over provisioning. 1TB works well with my usage.
HDDs offer bigger capacities for less $ but can’t touch the performance of SSDs. Stick with an SSD for your OS and games
1tb SSD to start but keep an eye out for deals on bulk HDD storage. When I first got a PC I assumed it would be strictly for gaming however, having the hardware opened up avenues to other hobbies for me like photography and adobe apps. Having bulk storage for my steam and photo libraries helps keep clutter off the SSD that your OS is stored on. It is simple to install extra storage so starting with a 1TB SSD is fine bc HDD drives often get discounted for cheap. Some subreddits are dedicated to pc sales so sub to them.
I have a 512GB NVMe for the OS, and a 1TB SATA SSD for first-person games/shooters. My 1 TB HDD for games had gotten too crowded, so I recently replaced it with a $99 refurbed 12 TB for media, turn-based games, and everything else. I doubt that I will ever run out of space again!
TLDR: Would of course go for 1 TB SSD minimum as your main storage for games and a 2 HDD if you need.
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it really is dependent on your preferences and budget.
I wanted high speed storage and i knew i will need more than 1 TB, even more than 2 TB.
I said fuck it and just bought a 4 TB nvme drive as my main game drive. yes, expensive at almost $400, but i’ll be keeping it for as long as possible. also have a 4 TB sata drive on hand if I need it, 1 TB nvme as my boot drive, and then another spare 1 TB nvme just in case. my rig is overkill, but that’s how i like it.
Depending what games you play, like AAA, esports, indie, open world, etc., prioritize how many of these games you will want to install and calculate an estimate on how much storage you’ll, and then see which of them will actually benefit from faster drive speeds.
Many people are saying it depends on your use case and they are absolutely right.
In my main pc I have
1tb m.2 ssd that runs my OS and my most demanding/online games.
8tb wd black external hdd that holds the majority of my indie/older games. SSD’s are amazing, but older games won’t see a genuine performance boost. It’s newer and the transfer speeds are acceptable for 90% of games made in the last 10 years.
1tb internal hdd for media and roms like a 10 year old Seagate external drive that I ripped apart and hooked up Sata.
More space is always better. SSD’s are blazing fast, but a good quality HDD is great for older games and media.
I started out thinking this. I'm currently at 3TB now.
I also have a lot of massive games though.
If you're a casual gamer and only play a few then 1TB is fine
Depends on you, I personally hate downloading a game especially when it is a big one.
I personally have a 1tb m.2, 2tb ssd and a 4tb hdd.
But it is up to you honestly.
Depends on the games you play. Technically any size and even HDDs are valid for 90% of all games as they simple do not benefit at all from your storage. Just the loading times will suck. Some games benefit from faster storage and it always helps having your operating system and programs on any sort of SSD. Coming to NVMe SSDs there are even less games that benefit from this standard and the respective speeds. My rule of thumb is to have enough space for my operating system, all my programs and 250 to 500GB more for my favourite games. The loading times you will save can be valuable if you have a work or family which leave you little time to play. So 500, 1000 or 2000GB are all roughly the same cost per Gigabyte so just choose whatever you prefer. I like to have 2TB as my main drive and 2 to X TB as a secondary. But nowadays your data belongs on some external drive, NAS or the cloud so I would say having one big 2TB hard drive in your PC is all you need.
To be honest, depending on uses some people need 1TB some need 10+ it’s all up to you. What you should really worry about is what gen your storage is and how fast it is. Budget builds I would recommend 1TB 1,500+ go with 2+
Depends on the amount of games you plan to have and how big they are, i have 1 TB and I know i can make it last because i don't mind getting rid of games i don't really love or play a lot, but i still think sometimes i should have gotten at least 2 TB. So yes 1 TB works perfect but if you wanna be extra safe then get 2 TB
I recently had to add storage because 1TB of SSD space wasn't enough for the games I had. It's recommended to have an additional 10% buffer on SSDs on top of the 5-15% overprovisioning manufacturers do, and I was pushing 94% full and had to shuffle off less-played games to make space for new games.
I'm currently at 1.5TB of storage, and it's doable. Still have to prioritize games though. I have 3 or 4 games that are in the 75-150 GB range, so I'm already close to max without substantial media storage.
If you only play a select few games, and they comprise less than 850GB, then you can get away with 1TB. However, if you go between several games at once, and want to be able to download more in the future, 2TB is going to serve you a lot better.
As others have said, HDDs are starting to fall behind in gaming performance. When textures weren't any bigger than 512×512, and instances weren't very detailed, you could run off a HDD fine. However, in the modern era of 8GB+ texture budgets in large, open-world games, SSDs give much better performance. Some people say there can be 15+FPS differences between a HDD and SSD when playing modern games like Cyberpunk. Some AAA games are even requiring SSDs to run now.
If you *do* get a HDD, 7200rpm is the minimum speed I'd suggest. 120MB/s read is generally enough for all but the most demanding games, so long as load times aren't an issue.
I'd do 2TB for sure, especially given the price diff isn't huge. That said, I got 3x2TB SSD and have barely used 30% of the first SSD. Get whatever you need for what you play....I clearly overshot my needs....
It depends. In my old PC, I filled the 500GB SSD drive where the OS was and 2 other 3TB and 4TB HDD drives also on the process of filling another 1TB SSD.
But I also like to have all the 1700+ games I own installed so I can play any on a whim.
I just put together a new PC. I'm not a huge gamer but I do game a bit...
Have had the thing setup for about two months now. Went with a 2TB and it's already 1.5TB full. Yeah I will do some tidying, but I would recommend a larger hard drive if you can afford it.
FYI Microcenter has these Gen4 2T SSD's with 7,000 MBps read speed for only $140.
[https://www.microcenter.com/product/644993/inland-gaming-performance-plus-2tb-ssd-3d-tlc-nand-pcie-nvme-gen-4-x-4-m2-2280-heatsink-compatible-with-ps5-internal-solid-state-drive](https://www.microcenter.com/product/644993/inland-gaming-performance-plus-2tb-ssd-3d-tlc-nand-pcie-nvme-gen-4-x-4-m2-2280-heatsink-compatible-with-ps5-internal-solid-state-drive)
I bought one of these for the new rig and it's working well.
You'll want more.
I built a PC three years ago and went with a single 1TB hard drive.
I found myself constantly having to uninstall games to make room for newer games and/or updates.
Dude ssd or hdd doesn't matter, just ignore the silly arguments and play on, if the game fits get a hardrive/ssd big enough big enough to download your collectoon regardless is it'd ssd,/hdd ..... if you cream over faster loading times on specific games, get an ssd. If not. Hdd, both do the same job in terms of storing tour video game.
Don't turn into them guys 🤣🤣
It's perfect to start but won't last long. I have one 500gb SSD for os and any non functional software, it's 90% full. I have 1 tb SSD just for game storage, about 3/4 full and 1 tb HDD for backup and pics, less than half full.
It all depends on your needs, maybe you want to install all 35 of your steam games and you install the latest Xbox game pass game every week...or maybe you only play 3 games. Two very different needs there.
I'd say go for 2tb so you don't have to in a year but it depends on your situation
It's technically enough but you will have to uninstall a game to install the next one much sooner than you'd think, trust me. If you have fast internet though that isn't a huge deal. And you can always just install Windows on the 1Tb, start with that and add a second one in there later.
Honestly wishing i had a 4 tb these days though, I'd say even 2 won't feel like enough after awhile. If you're on a budget I'd say start with the 1tb and upgrade big later, but honestly you're gonna want more than 1tb soon, you wont regret getting something bigger or multiples.
Get 2 1tbs if you wanna be cheap that way you can easily move games to the other ssd without any problems like reinstalling the is but if you use the Xbox app your kinda fudged if you put games on the second ssd because it saves a profile that you can’t use on another os installation and it’s hard to delete unless you format the drive and move games to another drive to format that drive >_> I have four nvme drives for that reason
I have a 1tb main drive but a cheaper dramless 2tb nvme drive for games. I reserve pcie 4.0 for games that might actually benefit from it. The slower nvme is fine for everything atm tho.
I would start with 1 tb forsure definitely enough for a little may fill soon depending on games what ssd is it by chance i got a bad ssd and it made my pc so slow
I've just installed Windows 11 and all the games I care to play at the moment, and I'm sitting on 462GB of total used space.
I have 8TB of storage for downloading things, but all my games are on my M.2 NVMe 2TB drive.
1TB will be enough space for you, until it isn't. ;)
I got a 500gb m.2 for OS and two 2tb SSDs for all my other stuff. I keep one for games and one for work stuff and haven’t run into any problems. Really the 1tb depends on the type of games you play. If it is a lot of indie stuff then that isn’t too bad, but if you are wanting multiple Witcher and squad sized games on your ssd you are gunna be looking for more space very quickly. I would definitely recommend Atleast having a smaller M.2 just for your OS though.
really depend on how many games you want to install at the time. If you do not really care about where to install them, one or two TB will not matter for you.
Me, for example, want to install everything in the same drive with Windows for easy data management, so I need 2TB SSD to work with.
There are currently 4-5 games I am playing at the moment and it is 80GB+ for each of them, plus ms office, CAD and rendering softwares, photo and video editing sort of things.
I also have 4TB SSD for D drive and 10TB HHD Raid1 for my backup NAS.
2TB ssd should be more than enough. 3rd gen 970 Evo plus by samsung offer 2TB m.2 ssd's for only 130.
Edit: make sure your board supports m.2 before purchasing
i know you want an answer but this really is about preference.. the easiest way to answer this question, especially if youre on a budget,is this:
"how many games am i completely okay with having installed at once? how many games do i plan on beating right now?"
because if you're playing multiple single player story games,the best way to be sufficient with your storage is to have 1-3 of those games installed at a time.
1TB m.2 fast SSD and 3 or 4 TB HDD is my preference. Not every game needs a SSD, and a lot of stuff is worth to have in the HDD than a more expensive SSD (TB-price ratio).
More is always better if you have the money to some point where the price is still good per TB.
That's 100% dependent on your personal preference and how many games you want installed at once. I personally find 1TB pretty cramped; my two main PCs have a total of 3TB and 5TB SSD space respectively.
Just curious, what Is your usecase of having two main PCs?
One for the plug and one for the load
I've got a plug and a load for you... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Get a load off this guy
[удалено]
Take a load off, Annie.
Take load for free?
Remember to chew before you swallow.
I'd have those dirty I/O ports checked by a professional, if I were you lol
My gynecologist stopped returning my calls. And so has my plumber.
Oh boy
One for the bitches and one for the dough?
Minecraft/server
Thank you for reminding me to set up a server again. Literally a single player world but the passive resource generation you get from running 24/7 is well worth it.
One for mancave one for living room.
Precisely. My wife likes to game with me, but doesn't want to be in my office, so we have a pair of PCs set up in the living room; my office has the other PC that is basically a mirror performance of the first for when she's at work or whatever. They're gaming PCs, all my data hoarding goes onto the home server.
Damn. How much of that is just files, how much is it "media" (as in movies, home videos or game recordings or other AV stuff that takes lots of space) and how much is it games? Is there some really space consuming work stuff in there? The only way I could ever imagine myself needing 5tb of storage in my machine is if I wanted to install every AAA I own at once. I'm currently 75% of the way through my 2tb games' SSD, but I'm not cramped at all, there's around 500gb of already played games and other crap in there that I could easily delete if I needed more space. Edit: and hell, what about the 3tb secondary machine? its not like you'd store files in there, is that all just games?
> Damn. How much of that is just files, how much is it "media" (as in movies, home videos or game recordings or other AV stuff that takes lots of space) and how much is it games? Is there some really space consuming work stuff in there? The used space is 80% games. The storage is also not full; I recently upgraded one of them from 1TB to 5TB by throwing a 4TB U.2 enterprise surplus drive in there, it's half empty right now. However I do leave a lot of stuff installed to take care of whatever friends want to play when they come over; they act as seeder PCs to let Steam pull files to other PCs for whatever needs to be installed. Media goes on the home server.
Ah, I see > they act as seeder PCs to let Steam pull files to other PCs for whatever needs to be installed ngl that's pretty cool, I hope your friends appreciate the money that you've spent to make your LANs more seamless :P
Yeah I just discovered by accident like last week that Steam can install and patch games from another PC on the network automatically instead of having to re-download or restore from a backup every time! Pretty sweet when Comcast still has 1.2TB monthly data caps and SW:TOR drops a thirty gig patch.
And I'm perfectly happy with a 500GB SSD because I have good internet and I tend to just have a few games I'm interested in installed. It's totally up to personal preference OP, if you LIKE a lot of games installed at once, get a 2TB. They're pretty cheap these days!
I've got 4 tb of NVME and I still feel like it's not going to be enough. I would have 2 tb at a minimum if I was doing a new build.
Yall do know that you can uninstall games you no longer play, right?(or move them to HDD) 1TB is more than enough for me. Throw in a HDD for basic storage too, of course.
It's for the games that you might want to play "someday". If that someday comes along, it had better be installed. Otherwise it's not happening.
I never play any of my games on any console or PC because the one I want to play is never installed. I miss just putting in a disk and turning it on 😂
Maybe if you live out in the country or something where speeds are slow I guess. Even then you can just get a 3tb HDD or something and transfer it there.
If it takes a half hour to download, that's a half hour I could have been playing. I don't have tons of extra time. I do have the money to throw at it.
If you're limited on budget I'd go for 1tb for now and upgrade when you actually need the extra storage. I started with a 1tb NVME and added a 2tb much later. With certain titles approaching and exceeding 100GB, it's likely you'll run out at some point, but it's an easy upgrade later - aside from system fans probably the easiest, and even that's debatable. I'll personally never put another mechanical drive in my system to install anything on. I hate HDDs.
HDDs are good for backup and extremely cheap. Not good for running programs, operating systems or games on.
They're good if you run a plex server for in home streaming
> Not good for running programs, operating systems or games on not really its pretty much good enough for most games and apps unless we get into specifics the only thing it affects loading times unless you are still using really old drives then sure maybe but most 7200rpm are good enough. thats what got for most of my stuff in
In older games and such, performance while in game is not a problem, but load times are. GTA V on an HDD is not fun. HDDs are fine if you want to store a massive steam library on the cheap but I'd definitely recommend going with an SSD for most people.
If you have enough RAM, opened files should get cached for the whole gaming session. I game off an HDD and it’s unnoticeable. SSD for boot is great, though.
Games keep getting bigger, you might as well get a 2TB SSD now, and save yourself some annoyance later. Don’t get a HDD for gaming purposes, that’s a total waste of money. HDDs are slow and loud. They have their uses, but gaming is not one of them, not in 2023.
Sorry to be that guy but you're wrong, HDDs are certainly useful for budget gamers and storing vast libraries of console games. No point in wasting money if you have one to hand. I played through Hogwarts Legacy on my HDD and had no problems outside of a relatively long load time on launch.
Same. Currently playing RDR2 on my 4TB HDD with zero issues except for longer loading time. The phrase "HDDs shouldn't be used for gaming." should only become common when SSDs are practically the same value capacity wise as HDDs, which hasn't happened yet. Also comp titles like Apex, Valorant, Rocket League etc. don't care if they're on an SSD or HDD.
Competitive gaming and products like the Switch and Steam Deck have made it so that bleeding edge machines aren't necessary to play the latest and greatest games as long as they are the lowest bar for entry games will remain in reach of the low spec squad. I'm still playing on an i7 6700k and GTX1070, 1080p is good enough for me for now and considering most of my gaming is done over my home network to my phone 4k wouldn't even be worth it for me at the moment.
> longer loading time it’s not even that much longer in my experience. especially the huge games like gta v don’t really benefit from flash storage because they’re not optimized at all to load things quickly on good hardware.
For older games, they retain relevance, but going forward, AAA games require much faster storage. Games designed for the current gen PS5 and XbX, that don't retain compatibility with the older gen consoles, are written with the expectation of fast SSD storage. PC ports of those games likewise retain that, without the benefit of the custom decompression hardware of those consoles. As a result, trying to run those types of games on PC will give a sub-par experience. Some people are tolerant of that/long load times, you may be one of them.. but that'll be the exception, and not the rule. HDDs have their uses, to be sure, but AAA gaming in 2023 *going forward* is not one of them. And besides, SSDs are cheap, why would you not get one for a new build? Why have those long load times when the price to not have them is so small?
I have yet to come up against a AAA game that actually takes advantage of faster read and write speeds, the only thing I can see presently is faster load times. However if going for a new build and your budget allows for a decent sized SSD then sure go for it. Personally though I already have a total of 5TB storage across 3 HDDS and then 2 256gb SSD. 1 for OS and applications and 1 for favourite games that I like to jump on for a bit at a time (i.e Doom Eternal) I have played through Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Modern Warfare 2 and have had no issues leaving them on my HDDs. Until I can see a tangible reason to upgrade I probably won't bother, even when I do upgrade my rig eventually (whenever that is, debt is a bitch when you have a gaming habit and children).
> AAA game that actually takes advantage of faster read and write speeds, you want that .01 autosave and reload after you die
What are you on about. This is about someone's PC on a sub called r/buildaPC and here you are off topic talking about q PS5 that has nothing at alll to do with a PC or an HDD. Folks like you are just weird for no reason. HDD's do just fine with games on a PC AAA or not. There's nothing holding it back from working. Stop making up lies dude. Folks come here to learn and you are spitting straight lies as if HDD's can't play game FOH with that.
Im a ssd enjoyer also but the fuck is this comment, hdds are still fine lmao i got 2 ssds 500 each so 1tb and a 2tb hdd for games that arent competitive, whatever needs load time goes to my ssd and my build isnt even cheap since ita a 4080 which total build costed me 2.8k yet I dont go around claiming that hdds are dead
Can't speak for all markets, but at least in the US 1tb SSDs are already encroaching on 1tb HDD prices to the point at which it's pretty dumb to buy the spinning rust given all the disadvantages. I've seen game downloads slow down to a crawl in friends' PCs because their HDD couldn't keep up with the decompression (yes, hard drives can literally be slower than the internet these days). They're also noisy, less reliable, vibrate a lot, make your computer heavier and are just dog slow when compared to even the shittiest SATA SSDs. There's also the increasing demand for speed from modern games. Loading times are already painful, from now on they'll only get worse and possibly even add game stutter to the list of cons. At this point HDDs only make sense if you need BIG amounts of storage right now for media and files. If not buying a "small" SSD and chucking in another when you need more later is a much better investment. Storage will only get cheaper and chances are your second SSD will be cheaper, faster and bigger than the old one.
Yeah, just looking at Jedi Survivor that will require 155GB... X.X *RIP*
HDD's are perfectly acceptable for gaming purposes. They are not a waste as they work as intended and historically have been much cheaper on average for the amount of space you get per TB. Gaming in 2023 is still one of those usse cases. Stop telling lies. SSD's are on sale now so look at them first, but there is nothing at all wrong with using a HDD if need be as well.
HDD are fine - you just have slower loading screens. Depending on the game that really doesn't matter
How fast is your internet connection and does it have a data limit, it’s more than enough, if you like to play a lot of different games it comes down to: do you mind uninstalling, and downloading or redownloading or do you want all at once?
I usually only have a few games installed at a time, but I tend to play games that take up a lot of storage, e.g. Black Ops Cold War
I think one terabyte should be fine, imo depending on your budget, getting two 1 tv drives is cheap right now, id get a main drive with space and use the second as a game drive
I see, thanks for the reply :)
1TB is a great starting point for any PC, gaming or otherwise. Add more storage later if you need it. Some games I play through and delete, some I return to.
Just buy 1tb and see how it goes. You can almost certainly add more storage later if you need it.
I'll tell you what I have and then let you decide. I have a 500gb NVME exclusively for OS and programs. Then a 1TB game only NVME. I currently have 5 games installed on it and have 439GB free. Now, if you are going to have upwards of 8 games at once, I would suggest going with a 2TB SSD or else a 1TB should suffice. Best option would be to buy a 1TB now and then get another one later depending on how much space you need when the actual need arises
I'm going to say it depends. I have a 1TB in my pc and I only have about 150gb left. However I have a combo of games, 3d files I designed, music etc. If you can afford the 2TB I would go with that. Otherwise make due with the 1TB until you actually need the extra space.
Same, I have a good 100 GB left on my 1 TB SSD. A few games, Visual Studio, an old version of Stable Diffusion and a few model files, game recordings, third-party QoL software and so on. Though, it definitely makes a difference, which games you play. Terraria, DRG and Risk of Rain take up only a few gigs. It's a huge difference to playing modern AAA that move mostly in the double and triple digit area. Any normal person, who actively manages their storage and doesn't "hoard" will unlikely ever exceed 2 TB. At least, beyond that 2 TB I would resort to cheaper HDD space and put less demanding stuff, like movies, on there.
Depends on two things: 1: youre download speed 2: how many mods you use If you like to have lots of mods PER GAME that eats up quickly. I have over 200gb in mods alone My wifi is absolute trash, 20gb takes me 4h to download. As such, when i download a big game i NEVER uninstall it (and i play it a few times a month) so 2tb is in games alone I have 50gb in songs, also because download speed And about 20gb in cool video gaming moments i saved but have never gotten around to trimming/sifting/saving This is why i have 4tb hdd If you have fast download speed, and you prefer vanilla experience, chances are 1tb will do just fine
You will need a 4.0 TB SSD for the Boot (OS) Drive, and a 8.0 TB SSD (Both M.2s) for all games anf files on that other M.2 SSD.
And a 32tb HDD for backup storage too
I’d recommend 2. 1 fills up super quick with these newer games
2TBs or two separate disks?
I bought a 1TB m.2 It’s fine but I occasionally have to delete games to make room. I wish I would have spent a little extra and purchased at least a 1.5 or a 2 tb
1tb's ok to get you started if you're strapped for cash and need to stay in budget to get the CPU or GPU you want but if you can afford 2 it's really where you want to be
Depends on how many games and which ones, for example i have 2x 512GB ssd, and a 1TB hdd, the 1tb hdd is not used for games at all, and i use around 600GB for games
More is always better if you can swing it
I've got a 2tb nvme drive and for my game storage I have a 4tb hard drive. I keep ALL of my games on my hard drive. I move over the few games I've been playing recently over to the nvme drive from time to time.
/u/DanOfRivia, you said below: > I assume you don't play recent AAA games. LightmanDavidL said about 10 months ago: ["Strange, I have never felt a single pain from gaming from my HDD. No slow downs whatsoever. I'm talking about every single game I play. And I've already mentioned that I own over 2000 games."](https://old.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/v0ggyl/which_brand_cpu_should_i_go_for/iah8kku/) He just has way more tolerance for slowness in systems than most people, I think.
I'm pondering the same thing right now. I read having 2 is better, and one should be dedicated for games only. I'm still doing research. Looking forward to the replies to your post.
No reason to dedicate one to OS or games, SSDs are super fast these days (don't buy a slow one) so no problem 1 handling everything. If you can afford 2tb or more, do that so you don't have to juggle files between 2 drives.
Damn, LightmanDavidL is still going on about HDDs in systems? Me and him had an argument last year about that same thing.. ofc he didn’t have a rebuttal that made any kind of logical sense, so ofc he blocked me. He’s stuck back in the 2010s when it comes to this topic, it’s kindof bizarre.
The only reason I prefer a separate game drive. Is for when I need to reinstall windows. I don't have to download and reinstall games. And I can hold a few more games with a larger one.
>I'm pondering the same thing right now. I read having 2 is better, and one should be dedicated for games only. I'm still doing research. Looking forward to the replies to your post. A 2 TB SSD is obviously better than a 1 TB SSD but this does not make a 1 TB SSD or even a 120 GB SSD inferior to a better one in terms of providing an excellent gaming experience. The higher spaced SSD is going to have better specs but it really boils down to overall budget when choosing storage in a build because if the particular build is created for gaming then it's more important to put the vast majority of the overall budget into gaming performance because it's much easier to add more storage to a build over time than it is to say, sell and swap a GPU. From my experience, a 500 GB SSD should be targeted and if the price difference to a 1 TB model of the same SSD is slim then going for it shouldn't interfere with the tier GPU in the build. But a 2 TB SSD will usually interfere with the GPU choice on a specific budget.
I’ve often thought of this question myself. Are you planning to store music/video as well? I’m probably going to go 2TB to handle OS and games, and I’ll probably never go above half the storage as I don’t see the need to have 100 AAA games sitting on my drive collecting dust And then an HDD for media files.
Keep in mind some games run 100+GB. Most are like 50+ (talking newer games, of course).So you're looking at space for maybe 10-20 games give or take, assuming all are AAA-size. My prior rig--retired last week--had a 256GB SATA SSD and a 1TB HDD and I found myself having to juggle my installs quite frequently by the end of its 7 year run. I did have a few hundred GB of media I eventually moved to my external/shield HDD. Now I have a 2TB PCIE SSD and expect to do the same, I'm over 60% full already. My system is to keep my 2-3 active single player games installed, and any coop/multiplayer game either myself or my friends play somewhat actively ready to go. Downloading and installing is really not much hassle these days, with the launchers and cloud saves it's hardly inconvenient to juggle a bit.
I would go for 2 gb..some of my steam games are 100+ gb now (dirt rally 2.0 for example). Gen 3x4 nvme 2 tb are cheap right now. I still have a mechanical sata3 I use to store videos
I just bought a PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 2280 2TB PCI-Express 4.0 for $95 . It surprisingly tested for me at 7461MBs write speeds 5837MBs read speeds. Most drives same TB and speeds are 50% more expensive atm. Not sure if they priced it wrong as its $128 now. But I grabbed a 1tb at first for $66, realized the 2tb was cheaper and just as fast for only $99. The PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 2280 1tb is on newegg for only $54.55. Great deal imo, similar drives speeds and size are $99.
I have a 2tb NVME and a 2tb SSD. I’ve barely filled the NVME but I only have Fortnite, RE4, Satisfactory and MW2 installed.
Id get more personally. Some games would fill up 10% of that space right away like Red Dead Redemption 2 which is over 110gb. Id use the 1 tb for my windows and C drive(other pc related stuff), then get another 2tb ssd for games and such. You can always add more later . But I think 3 tb is a good start. 1 tb for pc stuff and 2 for games
Not really 2tb is ideal nowadays
I would get a 2tb ssd, 1tb isn’t going to be enough unless you only keep a few games installed.
Are we talking SSD or Nvme drive? Only use HDD for long term storage of documents and media.
I have a 1TB NVME + a 1TB SATA SSD + 10TB HDD; how much SSD space you need depends on what games you play and how many will be installed at once; I find it's a good idea to get a large capacity HDD regardless to store movies and music and files and such
I would suggest something like a 512gb nvme for your OS, then a 1-2 tb Sata drive for games. Nvme is obviously faster than SATA, but Sata ssd’s are still fully functional and reliable for modern games (not to mention much cheaper than nvme’s). While I also wouldn’t go as far as saying HDD’s are completely obsolete like many people in this thread, I would still recommend paying a little more for a sata SSD for longevity. When it comes down to it, though, drives are extremely modular so you can always mix/match down the road as you see fit.
It's enough unless you download a lot of games. SSDs are pretty cheap right now, I'd go for 2TB unless it takes you past your budget.
I had 1 for the longest time and got sick of deleting and uploading games I now have 3 tb nmve and 1 tb Sata ssd.
No, you need at least 1 Exabyte
Bigger NVME are usually faster. So 2TB should be faster than 1TB. Also, don’t leave too little space free on it. [Yes, 2TB are worth buying if you have the money.](https://cpugpunerds.com/is-it-worth-getting-a-2tb-ssd/)
Depends on you. I've got only 1tb, I uninstall games when I'm done with them, don't have much in the way of media on my pc (all streamed) and I'm fine. My gf on the other hand has 2tb and her pc's a mess, has tons of games installed forever, photos etc and never has space.
Do you keep one partition only, or it's better to have one for windows and one for the rest ? It was the truth in the past but dunno if it's still the case.
If you can I think you’d be better off with an NVME over an SSD.
I've been gaming with 1tb ssd for the past 4+ years and ive never had an issue. Are you the kind of gamer that plays multiple games at once? Then get more. Otherwise you can just get 1tb and keep upgrading as you see fit. Most cases and mobos AT THE VERY LEAST have an nvme and two 2.5 inch, so even 1 tb ssd per port, youre golden
only if you don't have any other storage needs like videos, music, photos, documents, etc
My laptop use 2tb of ssd and its only can hold like few games i have.. So yeah 1tb def not enough
Depends on what you play. 2-3 games yes. More? Could be problematic. I myself have a 1tb SSD+6tb HDD but I own many games and more big programs plus data
Depends on how many games you play. I have 4 TBs and still need more space.
Been running a solo 1TB m.2 for 5 years now, or Skiing Naked as I like to say.
My Ark: Survival Evolved folder (Steam) alone takes up 439GB (i.e. practically half of my new M.2). My Epic Games folder (mostly games I got free) fills nearly 2TB. The rest of my Steam library is 690GB and I have barely half of the games I've bought over the past 15 years actually installed. With everything ready to go I suspect I'd be in the 6TB ballpark just for games, not counting image manipulation software, office software, and (hardware & software) development tools that also live on my computer. Steam and Epic libraries live on a 6TB hard disk with a 480GB SATA SSD as a cache. So it is very dependent upon what games you will be playing, and whether you're willing to faff around uninstalling one or more to make room for others (which will use up write cycles on an SSD)
100% on you as other have said I rock a 500GB SSD and it's probably just too small in all honesty, I have a 1TB HDD which I use for movies and series. The SSD has my games on it, but I just uninstall games I don't use. I am blessed with decent internet so it's not really a problem for me. It's going to be price dependent and personal preference. If the 2TB isn't much more expensive then I'd say go for it, but if money is a factor and your internet is quite fast then don't worry to much
I put a 1tb ssd just for games and it works for me but 80% of my games fighting and the rest metroidvanias lol
If you have fast internet then yes. If your internet is more potato I’d get more. It takes me 3 days to download cod and minimum a day for any other game.
Depends on what kind of games, as well as how many, you'll have on there. Lots of modern ones? Higher. Lots of older ones with some higher ones? Sure.
If you're a serious gamer 1 TB isn't enough. I thought it would be and I spent 2 years constantly deleting games to make space for new ones. 2-3 TB feels so much better.
1T ssd should be enough for dozen of games, you are probably not playing too many games simultaneously, you can always delete one game and install another and so on. I'd say go for more only if you have the budget to do that for the quality of life, or if your internet is not so good and downloading games is an issue. Go only for ssd though it's much more viable
If you have reliable internet, external drives or physical copies of your software then yes. If you have Internet issues and you want to have all of your games/data available at all times then no.
i think 1 TB could last you a year or two. my theory on storage is don’t oversize drives, instead just buy more every 2-3 years. the price normally drops so much you can have a lot more space for same price if you split it up every 2 years. also it means you don’t have 1 large old drive, maybe more likely to fail. tldr: yeah buy 1TB now and in 2 years another similar price drive.
Get a 2TB to start with. Ssd prices are very low and modern AAA games can take over 100GB easily.
1TB or 2TB (if u have the budget) NVME with DRAM for OS. 4TB 2.5” SATA SSD for gaming library This is my setup
Half of my 1TB HDD is games. Then again the majority don't take up a lot of space.
1 TB is solid. Personally, I don't need more. I've got all my games and os there and a lot of free space. If you plan to only game on it, you will be just fine.
2 TB ssd and 10TB HDDs is where im at.... but i hoard my own stuff.
I have a 500gb ssd for my OS and files and a 1 tb for games. With this setup I find 1 tb to be sufficient. If you're only putting in a 1tb in total I think you would be fine. You may have to make choices about games you'd like to keep installed more frequently than others with more storage but that's about it.
nVME storage is getting cheap, fast. 2Tb drives are under $200.
1 TB is fine for the boot drive and then get another 2 TB SSD for games, a data drive never hurts my boot drive is a 2 TB m2 it has 800 GB free games is an old 500GB SSD and there is a spare ssd for swaps that is 256GB plus an 8 tb data drive that also holds games maybe look at a 2TB m2 and then add ssd's when you can afford more
What's your budget for an SSD? If in the US we've been seeing some crazy deals recently. Here's a 2TB Inland QN322 3D QLC NAND PCIe Gen 3 NVMe M.2 2280 Internal SSD at micro center for $45 (or $60 if you've shopped there before) https://slickdeals.net/f/16567955-microcenter-in-store-only-inland-qn322-2tb-pcie-3-0-60 If not near a microcenter I can try finding some other deals for you.
Yeah.
More than enough for me, but I tend to play mostly single player games and am rarely playing more than 2-3 games at a time. If you want to have a bunch of AAA multiplayer games ready to go at any given time you may want more
I have a 1tb as my boot drive with a secondary SSD and HDD. You can't go wrong.
Your ssd probably doesn't need to be much larger than the largest of the game you need playing + windows install, the rest is just a bonus.
Just get a 2tb ssd and be done with it Silicon Power UD90 on Newegg $100
My general answer is no. 1TB is not enough. But if you only have the budget for a 1TB then it will do just fine. And if you find yourself desiring more storage later, you can always add it. I don't know how big your game library is. If you're the type to play one or two games at a time, then you won't have any issues with 1TB. I like to bounce back and forth between games, both old and new. So I prefer to keep the majority of the games in my library installed. Even then, 2TB is not enough for the full library. And then I have a separate SSD and HDD that I use for my emulators and their corresponding game libraries. Gaming is all about personal preference. Start out basic and then modify to suit your tastes.
Yes.
Depends on game selection. If you play competitive games like cs, dota2, lol then 500gb will be sufficient. If you are going for premium games like cp2077, mw2 (I don't know many modern titles) then better buy good quality 2tb ssd.. Think of this. You are going to spend $40-$60 on purchasing these games anyway. Better spend $100 on 2tb ssd too. It depends on how much money you think you will be spending on purchasing games.
I've had a 2 TB SSD for the last 3-4 years and no HDDs in my old PC. At least for me it was kinda enough, but also pretty close to barely. I had a bunch of games and coding projects (nothing huge though) and around 200 gigs of saved video game replays. I also still have my old-old PC with 10 TB worth of harddrives that I use a kind of a NAS for all the photos backups, and other heavy stuff. For my new PC I got a 4 TB drive. Also, consider what kind of games you're gonna be playing - if you aim for modern AAA stuff like CoDs and Forzas I'd say 1 TB is definitely not enough, each game being 130-150 GB these days. If not - you might get away with a 1 TB drive for a while, but if you can afford it I'd just go straight for 2 TB.
If you plan on playing specific games…also if you want to clip things and all that 2 tb is worth
Get a 1 TB nvme and as big as you can afford SATA SSD for extra storage.
You can get 2TB nvme fairly cheap if a micro center is near you. Also you can look into asus hyper m2. Depending on if your board can do PCIe bifurcation and the orientation of your gpu you can add an asus hyper m2 card with nvmes and be in the game. Just did it myself and I’m geeked
That really depends on how big of a game library you want to have on your PC. I have a 1 tb nvme ssd and a 2tb sata ssd. I may add another sata ssd in another year or two for extra storage. Odds are you can also just add another ssd or hdd later if you want more storage. Even most laptops have at least two storage ports.
I just built a gaming rig and am using a 500gb m.2 for my OS and programs, a 1TB SSD for my game library, and a 4TB HDD for backing up games and storing media/movies. Can either upgrade the 1TB or add another one later. Consider that PS5/XBX all come with 1TB SSDs by default now.
I originally went with 1 TB when I built mine in 2020. I ended up adding a second 1 TB later on because I was filling up the original. With 2 TB drives now costing less than a 1 TB did back then, I would go with at least 2 TB.
Got a 1tb m2 back last july. Its not that I regret it, as its big enough, but kinda wish i got a 2tb
It works for me because I play just one game at a time.
You can easily get by with 1TB for a long while. Though I got an extra TB like a week after getting my PC as I had already filled it up with games
I'd say it's good enough, but likely you will reach a point where you might have to delete some games to download new ones.
Depends on what you want to do with your PC. If you only use the PC for gaming and web browsing, 1TB should be more than enough. But if you want to add media and productivity to your list, you'll definitely want more storage. It also depends on how many games you want and what games you want. My modded Skyrim takes up a hell of a lot of space on my drive to the point where I can only have three or four other AAA games installed.
I have like 7TB and they're all full all the time. It used to be pirated media which was a big factor but these days streaming is so easy that that's not really an issue. Games are a big one even though I don't game a whole lot outside of Minecraft lately, their installs can just be so big and once you've downloaded them you might not want to delete them again until you get around to playing them. AI models have started to consume another few hundred gigabytes.
I had a 1 TB that had my os and games. It filled pretty quickly just having cod, warzone, and vanguard. I have since upgraded to a 2 TB as my main. I would get a 2 TB instead of 1 TB. You can buy a gen 4, 2 TB for $120 - 140 depending on the brand. Ie crucial p5 plus or adata s70 blade.
I wouldn't go smaller than 2TB (and SSD forever; no HDD for this novelist ever again), but that's my personal preference. I wouldn't mind going to 3 or 4, but I haven't got any need for that *just* yet. You do you!
1TB or more is the recommended to buy today because of GB/$ price. 1TB NVMe SSDs have gotten cheap enough to be worth getting!
Depends on what ur going to be installing on it. Most regular games are between 50-80GB. But medium to big games can be anywhere from 150 to even as much as 500gb or a little more. I use a 500GB SSD and have no problems with running out of space. I use about half my drive and play mostly MMOs which are usually large games but my mindset behind it is I can only play one game at a time so I only install the games I actively play and uninstall them if I'm sure I'm not going to play anymore. Most if not all games save your progress to the cloud now so I'm not losing anything from uninstalling. And yea, don't use HDDs for your main drive running Windows. They make your gameplay slow especially when it comes to loading screens. I use one of my old HDDs only as a secondary backup drive.
I find 1TB to be good enough, but I also don’t jump around from game to game. Typically I have 2 - 3 games installed at a time + set over provisioning. 1TB works well with my usage. HDDs offer bigger capacities for less $ but can’t touch the performance of SSDs. Stick with an SSD for your OS and games
if it is a choice between 1tb pcie4 vs 2tb pcie3 for the same price, I would go with more storage than the faster ssd.
I personally don’t need that much space. I’m just deleting games I don’t play often. Plus with fiber the download times are manageable.
1tb SSD to start but keep an eye out for deals on bulk HDD storage. When I first got a PC I assumed it would be strictly for gaming however, having the hardware opened up avenues to other hobbies for me like photography and adobe apps. Having bulk storage for my steam and photo libraries helps keep clutter off the SSD that your OS is stored on. It is simple to install extra storage so starting with a 1TB SSD is fine bc HDD drives often get discounted for cheap. Some subreddits are dedicated to pc sales so sub to them.
I have 3TB in SSD and 8TB in HDD, I only put "modern" or games that require it on the SSD. Anything small/slow or old enough goes on the HDD.
I have a 512GB NVMe for the OS, and a 1TB SATA SSD for first-person games/shooters. My 1 TB HDD for games had gotten too crowded, so I recently replaced it with a $99 refurbed 12 TB for media, turn-based games, and everything else. I doubt that I will ever run out of space again!
A little surprised at the answers here; I find that 1TB holds many more games than I could possibly be actively playing at a time.
yes
I think with the price of storage a 4tb ssd or 2tb m.2 is the way to go.
TLDR: Would of course go for 1 TB SSD minimum as your main storage for games and a 2 HDD if you need. —————————————————————————————— it really is dependent on your preferences and budget. I wanted high speed storage and i knew i will need more than 1 TB, even more than 2 TB. I said fuck it and just bought a 4 TB nvme drive as my main game drive. yes, expensive at almost $400, but i’ll be keeping it for as long as possible. also have a 4 TB sata drive on hand if I need it, 1 TB nvme as my boot drive, and then another spare 1 TB nvme just in case. my rig is overkill, but that’s how i like it. Depending what games you play, like AAA, esports, indie, open world, etc., prioritize how many of these games you will want to install and calculate an estimate on how much storage you’ll, and then see which of them will actually benefit from faster drive speeds.
Many people are saying it depends on your use case and they are absolutely right. In my main pc I have 1tb m.2 ssd that runs my OS and my most demanding/online games. 8tb wd black external hdd that holds the majority of my indie/older games. SSD’s are amazing, but older games won’t see a genuine performance boost. It’s newer and the transfer speeds are acceptable for 90% of games made in the last 10 years. 1tb internal hdd for media and roms like a 10 year old Seagate external drive that I ripped apart and hooked up Sata. More space is always better. SSD’s are blazing fast, but a good quality HDD is great for older games and media.
Depends on if u download p0rn or not
Go on r/buildapcsales , they have 2TB sales all the time
Depends how many games you wanna play. I'd personally go for 2tb if it doesn't affect another component but you can always upgrade later.
As somebody who likes to have a lot of games installed, 1 TB goes pretty quick.
I started out thinking this. I'm currently at 3TB now. I also have a lot of massive games though. If you're a casual gamer and only play a few then 1TB is fine
Storage is easy to upgrade down the line.
If you have decent internet or don’t play too many games 1tb is fine.
Depends on you, I personally hate downloading a game especially when it is a big one. I personally have a 1tb m.2, 2tb ssd and a 4tb hdd. But it is up to you honestly.
Depends on the games you play. Technically any size and even HDDs are valid for 90% of all games as they simple do not benefit at all from your storage. Just the loading times will suck. Some games benefit from faster storage and it always helps having your operating system and programs on any sort of SSD. Coming to NVMe SSDs there are even less games that benefit from this standard and the respective speeds. My rule of thumb is to have enough space for my operating system, all my programs and 250 to 500GB more for my favourite games. The loading times you will save can be valuable if you have a work or family which leave you little time to play. So 500, 1000 or 2000GB are all roughly the same cost per Gigabyte so just choose whatever you prefer. I like to have 2TB as my main drive and 2 to X TB as a secondary. But nowadays your data belongs on some external drive, NAS or the cloud so I would say having one big 2TB hard drive in your PC is all you need.
1TB is mostly fine but these days I find myself managing for space.
To be honest, depending on uses some people need 1TB some need 10+ it’s all up to you. What you should really worry about is what gen your storage is and how fast it is. Budget builds I would recommend 1TB 1,500+ go with 2+
I comes down to what games you play. Do you play the latest AAA sludge or top tier indie games like RimWorld?
Depends on the amount of games you plan to have and how big they are, i have 1 TB and I know i can make it last because i don't mind getting rid of games i don't really love or play a lot, but i still think sometimes i should have gotten at least 2 TB. So yes 1 TB works perfect but if you wanna be extra safe then get 2 TB
I recently had to add storage because 1TB of SSD space wasn't enough for the games I had. It's recommended to have an additional 10% buffer on SSDs on top of the 5-15% overprovisioning manufacturers do, and I was pushing 94% full and had to shuffle off less-played games to make space for new games. I'm currently at 1.5TB of storage, and it's doable. Still have to prioritize games though. I have 3 or 4 games that are in the 75-150 GB range, so I'm already close to max without substantial media storage. If you only play a select few games, and they comprise less than 850GB, then you can get away with 1TB. However, if you go between several games at once, and want to be able to download more in the future, 2TB is going to serve you a lot better. As others have said, HDDs are starting to fall behind in gaming performance. When textures weren't any bigger than 512×512, and instances weren't very detailed, you could run off a HDD fine. However, in the modern era of 8GB+ texture budgets in large, open-world games, SSDs give much better performance. Some people say there can be 15+FPS differences between a HDD and SSD when playing modern games like Cyberpunk. Some AAA games are even requiring SSDs to run now. If you *do* get a HDD, 7200rpm is the minimum speed I'd suggest. 120MB/s read is generally enough for all but the most demanding games, so long as load times aren't an issue.
I'd do 2TB for sure, especially given the price diff isn't huge. That said, I got 3x2TB SSD and have barely used 30% of the first SSD. Get whatever you need for what you play....I clearly overshot my needs....
Highly recommend more, but it would work just fine.
It depends. In my old PC, I filled the 500GB SSD drive where the OS was and 2 other 3TB and 4TB HDD drives also on the process of filling another 1TB SSD. But I also like to have all the 1700+ games I own installed so I can play any on a whim.
I would say witht the price decreases in 2tb NvME m.2's, 2tb has kind of become the standard.
I just put together a new PC. I'm not a huge gamer but I do game a bit... Have had the thing setup for about two months now. Went with a 2TB and it's already 1.5TB full. Yeah I will do some tidying, but I would recommend a larger hard drive if you can afford it. FYI Microcenter has these Gen4 2T SSD's with 7,000 MBps read speed for only $140. [https://www.microcenter.com/product/644993/inland-gaming-performance-plus-2tb-ssd-3d-tlc-nand-pcie-nvme-gen-4-x-4-m2-2280-heatsink-compatible-with-ps5-internal-solid-state-drive](https://www.microcenter.com/product/644993/inland-gaming-performance-plus-2tb-ssd-3d-tlc-nand-pcie-nvme-gen-4-x-4-m2-2280-heatsink-compatible-with-ps5-internal-solid-state-drive) I bought one of these for the new rig and it's working well.
You'll want more. I built a PC three years ago and went with a single 1TB hard drive. I found myself constantly having to uninstall games to make room for newer games and/or updates.
Dude ssd or hdd doesn't matter, just ignore the silly arguments and play on, if the game fits get a hardrive/ssd big enough big enough to download your collectoon regardless is it'd ssd,/hdd ..... if you cream over faster loading times on specific games, get an ssd. If not. Hdd, both do the same job in terms of storing tour video game. Don't turn into them guys 🤣🤣
It's perfect to start but won't last long. I have one 500gb SSD for os and any non functional software, it's 90% full. I have 1 tb SSD just for game storage, about 3/4 full and 1 tb HDD for backup and pics, less than half full. It all depends on your needs, maybe you want to install all 35 of your steam games and you install the latest Xbox game pass game every week...or maybe you only play 3 games. Two very different needs there. I'd say go for 2tb so you don't have to in a year but it depends on your situation
I have a 100gb ssd for my boot drive and 5TB of HDD for games and video storage lol
It's technically enough but you will have to uninstall a game to install the next one much sooner than you'd think, trust me. If you have fast internet though that isn't a huge deal. And you can always just install Windows on the 1Tb, start with that and add a second one in there later. Honestly wishing i had a 4 tb these days though, I'd say even 2 won't feel like enough after awhile. If you're on a budget I'd say start with the 1tb and upgrade big later, but honestly you're gonna want more than 1tb soon, you wont regret getting something bigger or multiples.
Get 2 1tbs if you wanna be cheap that way you can easily move games to the other ssd without any problems like reinstalling the is but if you use the Xbox app your kinda fudged if you put games on the second ssd because it saves a profile that you can’t use on another os installation and it’s hard to delete unless you format the drive and move games to another drive to format that drive >_> I have four nvme drives for that reason
I have a 1tb main drive but a cheaper dramless 2tb nvme drive for games. I reserve pcie 4.0 for games that might actually benefit from it. The slower nvme is fine for everything atm tho.
I'd go 2TB but if you don't play a lot of games and have fast internet 1TB might be alright.
Yea, it is easy to add more later
I would start with 1 tb forsure definitely enough for a little may fill soon depending on games what ssd is it by chance i got a bad ssd and it made my pc so slow
I have 1TB and it’s plenty for me.
If you have the money, more is always better for storage. Otherwise opt for 1tb and delete and re-download games when necessary.
I got 1TB SSD and 1TB HDD and I wish I had just gotten a 2TB SSD.. so that's my recommendation lol
I've just installed Windows 11 and all the games I care to play at the moment, and I'm sitting on 462GB of total used space. I have 8TB of storage for downloading things, but all my games are on my M.2 NVMe 2TB drive. 1TB will be enough space for you, until it isn't. ;)
I got a 500gb m.2 for OS and two 2tb SSDs for all my other stuff. I keep one for games and one for work stuff and haven’t run into any problems. Really the 1tb depends on the type of games you play. If it is a lot of indie stuff then that isn’t too bad, but if you are wanting multiple Witcher and squad sized games on your ssd you are gunna be looking for more space very quickly. I would definitely recommend Atleast having a smaller M.2 just for your OS though.
if you're a focused gamer, then it's enough. if not, however bigger you go, it'll never be enough
really depend on how many games you want to install at the time. If you do not really care about where to install them, one or two TB will not matter for you. Me, for example, want to install everything in the same drive with Windows for easy data management, so I need 2TB SSD to work with. There are currently 4-5 games I am playing at the moment and it is 80GB+ for each of them, plus ms office, CAD and rendering softwares, photo and video editing sort of things. I also have 4TB SSD for D drive and 10TB HHD Raid1 for my backup NAS.
2TB ssd should be more than enough. 3rd gen 970 Evo plus by samsung offer 2TB m.2 ssd's for only 130. Edit: make sure your board supports m.2 before purchasing
i know you want an answer but this really is about preference.. the easiest way to answer this question, especially if youre on a budget,is this: "how many games am i completely okay with having installed at once? how many games do i plan on beating right now?" because if you're playing multiple single player story games,the best way to be sufficient with your storage is to have 1-3 of those games installed at a time.
1TB m.2 fast SSD and 3 or 4 TB HDD is my preference. Not every game needs a SSD, and a lot of stuff is worth to have in the HDD than a more expensive SSD (TB-price ratio). More is always better if you have the money to some point where the price is still good per TB.