Drive Setup Question for new build

[Light1984]

So like many people I'm getting ready to upgrade once the new stuff lands later this year, RTX 3090, Zen 3, etc. I have no experience with nvme drives but am thinking about a 512 gb/1 tb for my main drive with either a 2 tb nvme or 2 tb sata drive as my storage (music, game install backups, programs backups, etc) drive. If I go with an nvme drive for my storage, am I correct in thinking that I need to get a board that has at least 24 lanes direct to the CPU (16 for gpu, 4 to main nvme, and 4 to secondary nvme)? Is this easy information to find? I seem to remember reading that some x570 boards have 20 and some have 24. Hopefully there will be x670 and this won't be an issue.

My second question, which may not be able to be answered yet is if I should keep my storage drive on sata and get a secondary nvme drive just for game installs, since there is talk of upcoming games streaming assets instead of storing in memory like the new consoles. Is there any benefit to doing this anyways versus installing games on the C drive with windows? Mainly looking at playing cyberpunk, hell let loose, KC: D, Microsoft flight sim, and DCS.

TIA

 

[pendragon1]

So like many people I'm getting ready to upgrade once the new stuff lands later this year, RTX 3090, Zen 3, etc. I have no experience with nvme drives but am thinking about a 512 gb/1 tb for my main drive with either a 2 tb nvme or 2 tb sata drive as my storage (music, game install backups, programs backups, etc) drive. If I go with an nvme drive for my storage, am I correct in thinking that I need to get a board that has at least 24 lanes direct to the CPU (16 for gpu, 4 to main nvme, and 4 to secondary nvme)? Is this easy information to find? I seem to remember reading that some x570 boards have 20 and some have 24. Hopefully there will be x670 and this won't be an issue.

My second question, which may not be able to be answered yet is if I should keep my storage drive on sata and get a secondary nvme drive just for game installs, since there is talk of upcoming games streaming assets instead of storing in memory like the new consoles. Is there any benefit to doing this anyways versus installing games on the C drive with windows? Mainly looking at playing cyberpunk, hell let loose, KC: D, Microsoft flight sim, and DCS.

TIA

in real world usage youll barely notice a difference between nvme and ssd. unless youre playing benchmarks or constantly transferring HUGE files, imo they arent* worth it. unless you really need the space savings(size).
edit* arent worth it, not are.

 

[Light1984]

in real world usage youll barely notice a difference between nvme and ssd. unless youre playing benchmarks or constantly transferring HUGE files, imo they are worth it. unless you really need the space savings(size).

Is there any benefit to putting game installs on a separate drive from the main operating system whether it's sata or nvne?

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

Is there any benefit to putting game installs on a separate drive from the main operating system whether it's sata or nvne?

A primary OS NVMe SSD + secondary SATA unit for games might cost less than one large NVMe drive for everything. Otherwise, no.

Other uses for a secondary drive, such as media storage, backups, etc. don't even really benefit from a SSD, and would still be fine running off a HDD.

 

[TheSlySyl]

Is there any benefit to putting game installs on a separate drive from the main operating system whether it's sata or nvne?

IMO It just makes things WAY easier. You can transfer your game drive between operating systems without having to redownload everything, STEAM just automatically scans the drives and picks up all your old game installs and such. If something fucks up your windows drive with things like weird scans and errors you can just nuke windows and reinstall it and know that it has nothing to do with your game files. Also it just requires a lot less shuffling around of hard drive space to make room for stuff. Especially considering how damn huge game sizes are now - I have multiple games over 100GB and flight simulator 2020 is now my largest "game" at over 300GB total.

Of course, I'm not a typical use case scenario, my games are installed to an 8TB HD accelerated by a 1TB NVME SSD cache. I have windows on a PCIE-E 4.0 512GB that's pretty much exclusively windows and program files.
(Unlike what a lot of people claim, I DO notice the difference between SATA, NVME SSD and even 4th gen NVME, but I transfer gigantic amounts of files daily).

 

[Light1984]

IMO It just makes things WAY easier. You can transfer your game drive between operating systems without having to redownload everything, STEAM just automatically scans the drives and picks up all your old game installs and such. If something fucks up your windows drive with things like weird scans and errors you can just nuke windows and reinstall it and know that it has nothing to do with your game files. Also it just requires a lot less shuffling around of hard drive space to make room for stuff. Especially considering how damn huge game sizes are now - I have multiple games over 100GB and flight simulator 2020 is now my largest "game" at over 300GB total.

Of course, I'm not a typical use case scenario, my games are installed to an 8TB HD accelerated by a 1TB NVME SSD cache. I have windows on a PCIE-E 4.0 512GB that's pretty much exclusively windows and program files.
(Unlike what a lot of people claim, I DO notice the difference between SATA, NVME SSD and even 4th gen NVME, but I transfer gigantic amounts of files daily).

Thanks for this, it sounds like your use case will be similar to mine and I hadn't thought about the ease of having the games on a separate drive.

I do like the idea of a fresh windows install without having to redo games. But aren't there still system files for games that get dumped onto c? If I do a fresh OS install then install steam, steam takes care of that part during the scan you talked about? Wish there was something like that for all programs. I think the Android OS recently incorporated something similar where apps are a separate partition from the OS which makes updates much smoother with less problems after.

 

[TheSlySyl]

If you have a fresh install of windows and the games on a secondary drive, when you first try to boot up the game it will automatically run whatever VCredists or PhysX, .net or whatever else is needed. If it still doesn't launch (which is super rare from my experience) right click the title in steam, tell it to scan the game install for errors and it will always make sure to install the prequisite programs before it launches again.

I went through this recently when I moved my OS over to the corsair MP600, while leaving my other 9 drives untouched. (As I said, I'm not a usual scenario)

Also from my experience, Epic Games doesn't know how to even attempt to find previously installed programs, Origin is extremely hit or miss, usually miss, Blizzard does a good job finding them but still requires redownloading a portion, and Uplay, of all things, actually does a good job with previous installs. Nothing is as easy as STEAM as for every other installation program you need to point out the files for every individual install instead of just a root folder.

 

[Kardonxt]

I do like the idea of a fresh windows install without having to redo games. But aren't there still system files for games that get dumped onto c?

It depends on the game. As long as it is Steam based everything Steam needs to launch the game is in the Steam folder or it will recreate as needed. Now, if you care about your game saves, you may very well need to pull some files from the C drive (likely your my documents) still. A lot of games use Steam cloud now but not all of them.

IMHO it really comes down to your storage needs. If you can fit everything comfortably on 2tb just get a 2tb nvme and be done with it.

 

[Ranulfo]

One reason I've isolated Windows to its own drive is it just makes it easier to make a quick backup of windows.