Two or three SSDs?

N

nanobeast

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 21, 2007
Messages
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For my new system I am deciding between the two setup.

Setup 1:

Samsung Pro 256GB (For OS and Drivers etc.)
Samsung Pro 256GB (For Lightroom, Adobe Suite, and Video Editing)
Samsung Evo 500GB (For Steam games)
1TB HDD (For Storage)


Setup 2:

Samsung Pro 256GB (For OS and Drivers etc.)
Samsung Evo 1TB (For Lightroom, Adobe Suite, and Video Editing, and Steam Games)
1TB HDD (For Storage)

Which setup would be preferable and why?
 
In Setup 1, you have 1TB total of SSD space. If that's good enough, then why not just have a single 1TB SSD for everything but storage? It's not like you'll be able to detect a difference in speed between the Pro and the EVO.
 
I'd choose the system with the fewest actual number of drives. Fewer points of failure. Performance-wise, I think the two systems will be virtually indistinguishable in practical use.
 
teh_chem said:
I'd choose the system with the fewest actual number of drives. Fewer points of failure. Performance-wise, I think the two systems will be virtually indistinguishable in practical use.
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This. There is no need to separate the drive space physically, although I get what you were trying to do. It would have made sense 1 or even 2 years ago, but with the recent Samsung 1TB SSD's and 480/512GB versions coming down in price, everything has changed.


Go big, then go home. If you really want to ere on the side of caution, then pick up two 480 or 512GB versions and just plug the second one in when/if you need it down the road. Also will make a good back up drive just in case. I buy my storage in doubles. Trust nothing.
 
My concern was photo and video editing. Wouldnt pro be the better choice (longevity) because of all the write operations?
 
nanobeast said:
My concern was photo and video editing. Wouldnt pro be the better choice (longevity) because of all the write operations?
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Because it's much larger, the 1TB EVO should last longer than the 256GB Pro. Planning on writing 100GB per day, every day? The 1TB EVO would be able to do that for over 30 years (not that you would actually use it for that long).

Edit: my math may or may not be right on whether the TLC 1TB EVO is rated to last longer than the MLC 256GB Pro, but both will almost certainly last longer than you would ever use them.
 
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evilsofa said:
Because it's much larger, the 1TB EVO should last longer than the 256GB Pro. Planning on writing 100GB per day, every day? The 1TB EVO would be able to do that for over 30 years (not that you would actually use it for that long).

Edit: my math may or may not be right on whether the TLC 1TB EVO is rated to last longer than the MLC 256GB Pro, but both will almost certainly last longer than you would ever use them.
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I would get the setup that is the cheapest. Also I wouldn't worry about running out of writes unless you plan to do the equivalent of more than 1 full drives writes (1TB of writes for a 1TB SSD) per day, every day for more than 5 years. Unless you are running a server that is write heavy, you should never have to worry about writes. For example I have a 120GB drive that I have had for about 3 years that I use for my OS and main games. I only have 5.06TB of writes, which is about 1% that my drive can handle. My drive will physically fail long before I use my writes up and if it doesn't fail, I will die before I use it up. (I am not even 30 yet)
 
Ok. You guys have convinced me to go with the 1TB SSD.

My only question now...

I have a 120GB Samsung 830. Should I use that for the OS? And the 1TB Evo for everything else?

Or should I just sell the Samsung 830 and use the 1TB for everything else?

Pros/cons?

(In either case, I will use a separate HDD for storage)
 
There's the point of less points of physical failure and the old tale about having all your eggs in the same basket. Get a regular 4Tb hdd for backups and use it.
 
nanobeast said:
Ok. You guys have convinced me to go with the 1TB SSD.

My only question now...

I have a 120GB Samsung 830. Should I use that for the OS? And the 1TB Evo for everything else?

Or should I just sell the Samsung 830 and use the 1TB for everything else?

Pros/cons?

(In either case, I will use a separate HDD for storage)
Click to expand...

That's how I do it and I like it.

If you ever need to reinstall your OS it makes it a lot easier.
If you build a new PC you can leave the OS drive in it and use the others in your new build. Then you can use your old machine as a media center or whatever.

I don't think there are really any disadvantages to it unless any of those programs force you to use the C: drive and take up too much space. I ran into that problem with an 80 GB SSD and a bunch of Microsoft development tools would only work on the C: drive.
But 128 GB should be enough and I have all of my Adobe programs and Steam on another drive so you should be good for those.
 
Go with the least and the largest.
I'd sell off the 120gb 830 personally.

B00nie said:
There's the point of less points of physical failure and the old tale about having all your eggs in the same basket. Get a regular 4Tb hdd for redundancy and use it.
Click to expand...

fixed
 
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