Thank you for this advice. Is the transfer between storage a complicated process? Or is as simple as using file explorer to transfer it and then it works with steam or other game launcher?
Yeah agreed with mine i have a 512gb for windows only and then a 1tb ssd for games and later on in time i bought a 4tb for pictures movies etc. Its whatever your preference is but a 1tb ssd will do you fine
Do you mean transferring between harddrives? If you do its extremely simple and can be fast depending on the drives
Inspireless Llama
Community Contributor
Things like photo's you can just transfer using file explorer. All your drives are shown here:
For steam specifically, if you want to transfer a game to a different drive you can use Steam itself to transfer the game.
However, it would be best to just straight up install a game on the right drive. All y ou'd need to do is create a folder for Steam to install games on using File Explorer, then you can select the drive you want it on while installing a Steam game.
Most other launchers I use will let you choose which drive / folder you want your games installed in. So you can choose the proper drive directly while installing.
See:
How to transfer game files between PCs
It's possible on every major digital storefront... except the Microsoft Store.
www.pcgamer.com
Which tells you how to move games between drives. It's very simple, and can often be done within the launcher
See:
How to transfer game files between PCs
It's possible on every major digital storefront... except the Microsoft Store.
Which tells you how to move games between drives. It's very simple, and can often be done within the launcher
Thank you both for this information. I don't know when I will be buying a PC as I need to save a little more money but this will allow me time to tweak it a bit. If I need more advice with that, I'll be sure to refer back to this thread as you have been incredibly helpful so far.
Sorry for any confusing advice i was only sharing what has worked for me previously take as much time as you need dont rush into it, mistakes are easily made but you got this, if we dnt hear from you i wish you the best of luck on your build
One piece of advice I'd have about that is that it's not worth planning a PC purchase in any detail in advance. New hardware comes out literally all the time - and by the end of the year we're expecting to have seen:
new CPUs from AMD
the further rolling out of Intel's new lineup
rolling out of AMD's B550 mobos
new GPUs from Nvidia
and new GPUs from AMD
Rumour has it around September for the Cyberpunk launch.
Also, pricing and availability shifts like the sands right now. There are always global factors behind that (supplies of the components used to make PC parts, trade tariffs, that sort of thing). On top of which, Covid-19.
Hopefully the conversation has given an idea of some places to look for info on parts and gaming performance, but I wouldn't get too attached to any specifics if it's not an imminent purchase
Hopefully, It will be a purchase made around a month from now, so Its likely to change a fair amount by time I actually purchase it but thank you for this info as I might have a slightly higher budget depending on a few factors so I'm gonna keep tweaking it before I buy it.
Thank you once again.
Mknott
Staff member
Hey folks,
I get you're all passionate about trying to help out OneOfTheJacks, who looks like he's getting a lot out of the thread, it also seems like misunderstandings got cleared up in a PM so there's no need for any animosity.
You're all helping someone out, let's keep it civil.
I get you're all passionate about trying to help out OneOfTheJacks, who looks like he's getting a lot out of the thread, it also seems like misunderstandings got cleared up in a PM so there's no need for any animosity.
You're all helping someone out, let's keep it civil.
Last edited:
Yeah dont understand the hostile ness we all trying to give our opinion on what works best for us to help a gamer out lets not judge one another
spvtnik1
Community Contributor
I've moved to all SSD, and unless I needed something archival quality that could reliably store data (without power) for many many years (decades), I don't think I would purchase an internal HDD again. But, it's not like I'm generating data consistently (e.g. photography or video-editing).
I also believe that - while it isn't quite a huge deal right now - an SSD is really the best way to go for gaming performance, even on a secondary drive, because this is going to affect texture fill rates for games installed on that drive. With even the most basic GPUs edging towards a minimum of 6GB of VRAM, the faster you can send those textures to the VRAM, the better. The more titles you can install and keep installed, the more variety you will be able to have with your gaming experiences. Why constrict your AAA, grand-slam titles to your primary drive? But even 1TB can go pretty quick when games run an average of 20GB and upwards of 70GB sometimes.
Pretty soon the trend for gaming rigs will more likely be an NvME SSD paired with a secondary SATA SSD. Perhaps for 1080p gaming that is a moot point to make, but I feel that's how things are rolling right now as resolutions increase.
On the other hand, the cost-effectiveness of an HDD can't be beaten.
I also believe that - while it isn't quite a huge deal right now - an SSD is really the best way to go for gaming performance, even on a secondary drive, because this is going to affect texture fill rates for games installed on that drive. With even the most basic GPUs edging towards a minimum of 6GB of VRAM, the faster you can send those textures to the VRAM, the better. The more titles you can install and keep installed, the more variety you will be able to have with your gaming experiences. Why constrict your AAA, grand-slam titles to your primary drive? But even 1TB can go pretty quick when games run an average of 20GB and upwards of 70GB sometimes.
Pretty soon the trend for gaming rigs will more likely be an NvME SSD paired with a secondary SATA SSD. Perhaps for 1080p gaming that is a moot point to make, but I feel that's how things are rolling right now as resolutions increase.
On the other hand, the cost-effectiveness of an HDD can't be beaten.
Thanks, Ill keep this in mind. For the time being, a HDD will be much more affordable for me to use alongside the SSD. Especially like you said, I will only be running at 1080p at least for the time being. I was planning on transferring the data to the SSD when I go to play the games that i have installed in my HDD, because it makes more sense for me to have the games installed on a seperate drive and then transfer them over because I'm running on Small English village wifi and it will take me ages to download those games if I need to uninstall them just to download others. I will probably want some storage for photos and videos as I trying to learn more about editing photo and video.
If you have an affordable SSD based solution to storing the games, then I'm all ears.
spvtnik1
Community Contributor
Sounds like the name of an xTc album
All I can really say about the affordability of an SSD is that they are down to less than $1per GB, which is great value. Around 2014 I spent ~$140 on a 120GB SSD. Last year, I spent the same amount for a 1TB drive. Failure rates on SSDs are basically non-existent, whereas, techs will tell you that a HDD has the potential to fail the moment it starts spinning. Not likely, but it can indeed happen. With that in mind, critical data stored on a HDD requires some degree of redundancy.
In fairness, critical data stored on an SSD or anything else absolutely needs redundancy(!). Data on SSDs can also be more vulnerable to corruption. Also, SSD 'failure rates' being basically non-existent' 1) citation needed 2) even if literally true, it really does not tell the whole picture:
www.enterprisestorageforum.com
www.howtogeek.com
My dream too is all-SSD storage, but given that a 4Tb HDD costs £100 or less and a 4Tb SSD costs £400, that's not going to happen any time soon. And they're not some kind of data panacea either.
SSD vs HDD | What Is the Difference? | ESF
Understand the balance of cost, performance, capacity and reliability when when choosing between SSD or HDD. Learn more here.
www.enterprisestorageforum.com
SSD Lifespan: How Long Does an SSD Last?
They'll probably outlast your regular hard disk drives.
www.howtogeek.com
My dream too is all-SSD storage, but given that a 4Tb HDD costs £100 or less and a 4Tb SSD costs £400, that's not going to happen any time soon. And they're not some kind of data panacea either.
I'm unsure on the meaning of degree of redundancy? Does that mean it will be better for me to have an SSD to store all my data or will a HDD suffice? because I am planning on having a 1TB SSD to store Windows and whatever games I am playing at that time. Then having an additional HDD in order to store games and additional data that I am not using at that time specifically. It seems that my combination of storage from @Oussebon 's advice in this build. https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/OneOfTheJacks/saved/RrtfP6 seems to be fairly affordable using both a 1TB SSD and the 2TB HDD. Whereas my knowledge of 3TB SSDs is lacking, so if you have a suggestion for an SSD only solution at a similar price, but as far as I can tell that will be near impossible to achieve. Thanks for the Advice though
Redundancy is just having more than 1, so that if 1 fails, you still have 1 more
i.e. a spare copy aka a backup of your files.@spvtnik1's post could be (mis?)read as meaning you need redundancy only if your data is on an HDD, not an SSD. I would disagree - you need redundancy (a spare copy) of your critical data regardless of whether it's on an SSD or HDD.
Whether you store your data on an HDD or an SSD, you should always keep a copy - separate from your PC - of any files you can't bear to lose. You might choose to use cloud storage like Microsoft Onedrive or Google Drive. That would hopefully protect you both from data loss due to drive failure, and data loss due to e.g. accidentally deleting something, or getting a virus on your PC.
If you lose your game installs because they're on a drive that dies, well it's a pest, but you can redownload them even if it's slow. They're not "critical" - you probably won't lose sleep over it. You probably don't need redundancy for those. If you lose your personal correspondence, irreplaceable family photos, etc, that might hurt more if you didn't have a backup.
@OneOfTheJacks that part list seems to be set to private so I don't think we can see it
You can press the "BB" button on your part list and it generates something you can copy-paste to the forum if you want.
Inspireless Llama
Community Contributor
For a seperate copy you don't need to have it on a HDD yourself. Me for example, (al)most of my pictures are stored on OneDrive as a backup. Unfortunately I don'tthink everything because my previous phone broke before it was able to backup these pictures.
Yet, evne if my PC fails now, most of my pictures (and several files) are stored on OneDrive as a backup for me, and I think I can trust Microsoft on keeping their own backups
In terms of game specifically: Alot of Steam games offer cloud saving. That's useful if you often play on different PC's, but that also can be considered a backup in case you have to reinstall your PC or lose a drive for whatever reason. So if you're willing to look at cloud options I'm not sure if you really need a hardcopy.
Yet, evne if my PC fails now, most of my pictures (and several files) are stored on OneDrive as a backup for me, and I think I can trust Microsoft on keeping their own backups
In terms of game specifically: Alot of Steam games offer cloud saving. That's useful if you often play on different PC's, but that also can be considered a backup in case you have to reinstall your PC or lose a drive for whatever reason. So if you're willing to look at cloud options I'm not sure if you really need a hardcopy.
Thank you for the information, I won’t worry too much about redundancy as I already use one drive to save most photos I use. As HDD is cheaper for what I want to use it for, I’ll go for that approach as like you said it isn’t critical especially because of cloud saving of game save files and I already utilise the cloud to store anything that’s important for me not to lose.
spvtnik1
Community Contributor
Thanks for clearing that up Oussebon, that is exactly what I meant. I agree, critical data should be redundantly backed up regardless of the storage solution. Most personal files are about the most critical data that we hold on to. I meant to refer to operationally critical stuff, like medical files, point-of-sales operations... industry related stuff. I remember helping to set up a POS system at a Dave N Buster's, and they literally had a full clone of their server right next to it ready to go if the primary failed. Maybe overkill, but I was impressed by this no b.s. approach!
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram