Unsure of whether you should get an SSD or HDD? In this guide, we discuss how SSDs and HDDs compare to each other in terms of gaming performance and which option would be best for you.
As solid state drives have decreased in price over the last couple of years, more and more gamers are switching from traditional hard drives to SSDs in order to store their favorite games. However, there seems to be some confusion about whether or not choosing an SSD over a hard drive will have an impact on your in-game performance.
So, in this article, we’re going to discuss how SSDs and HDDs stack up against each other in terms of gaming performance and whether or not an SSD will give you a better in-game experience.
Also Read: What to Look for in an SSD & Hard Drive: 6 Things to Consider
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What Gaming Benchmarks Say: SSDs Don’t Deliver Higher Framerates
There are a lot of performance advantages of choosing an SSD over a traditional mechanical hard drive. The faster read and write times of an SSD help it load large files faster and also cut down on the boot times into both your operating system and the programs and applications on your computer.
However, in terms of in-game performance, an SSD will not provide any kind of significant performance advantage. In the testing that I’ve done and of the benchmarks that I’ve seen, the results show that the difference between a solid state drive and a hard drive in games is negligible. The reality is that games that are installed on an SSD will not deliver you more frames per second than if those games were installed on a hard drive, all other things equal.
So, if you have an aging gaming PC, and you were planning on upgrading to an SSD because you thought that might help you run your games at a more acceptable framerate, you’d be better off using the money you were going to spend on an SSD to, first, get a newer graphics card and, then, upgrade your CPU and RAM.
But, while SSDs won’t give you higher framerates, that doesn’t mean that they are useless for gamers…
Where SSDs Can Help Gamers
Although an SSD isn’t going to give you a higher framerate in your favorite games, it will offer gamers an advantage over traditional hard drives. And, that is in boot times.
Games that are installed on an SSD will typically boot faster than games that are installed on a traditional hard drive. This boot time will vary from PC to PC and game to game, but in some instances booting a game from an SSD can take less than half the time it would take to boot it from a hard drive.
Also, load times to go from a game’s menu into the game itself are faster when the game is installed on an SSD than when it installed on a hard drive. The load times from a menu into a game are not as significant as the difference between SSDs and HDDs in game boot times, but there is a small advantage for SSDs there as well.
So, ultimately, while an SSD isn’t going to give you an FPS boost, it will significantly decrease the amount of time you spend from the moment you launch your game to the moment you are actually in the game playing it.
Other Advantages of SSDs that Gamers Will Want to Take Note Of
Again, an SSD isn’t going to help your PC run today’s top games faster. However, with its increased boot times, your games will load faster. And, that means you won’t have to sit around as long waiting to play your game.
Another area where SSDs can help is in the time it takes your system to boot up. Just like how an SSD will help your games load faster, it will also help your system startup more quickly (as long as your operating system is installed on your SSD.)
So, you can further cut down on how long you’re waiting to play games and use your computer by choosing an SSD over a hard drive.
Also, as most gamers do other things on their computers than just play games, an SSD will provide performance boosts in transferring files and opening other programs and applications. For gamers that are also video content creators, SSDs can move large video files much faster than video files and so they offer a significant advantage for video editors.
The bottom line is that, while SSDs aren’t the savior of gamers with low framerates, they do offer a nice performance boost across all applications and use cases.
SSDs and HDDs Together? Not As Great A Pair As it Once Was
In the past, the common strategy for PC builders looking to maximize their storage capacity and storage speed was to choose a smaller SSD to hold their more important files and applications, and to choose a larger mechanical hard drive to hold the bulk of their files.
And, while this strategy is certainly still viable, with SSD prices continually dropping (in relation to traditional HDDs), it makes more sense to just start out with one large SSD.
1TB SATA SSDs can be purchased for as low as ~$60. For most gamers that should be plenty of storage space in the short term.
However, if you are someone who requires a ton of storage space, pairing an SSD with a larger HDD is still an excellent option. You can get mechanical hard drives with capacities all the way up to 18TB-20TB. If paired with a 1TB or 2TB SSD, a secondary hard drive can be a great way for content/video creators or anyone else dealing with a large amount of files to ensure they have plenty of space on their system.
Should You Put Your Games on Your SSD or HDD?
One common question that gamers who have both an SSD and an HDD ask is whether or not they should install their games on their SSD or their HDD. And, the answer to that question is, it depends.
Games that are installed on your SSD will load quicker than they will if they were installed on your HDD. And, so, there is an advantage to installing your games on your SSD instead of on your HDD.
So, as long as you have enough storage space available, it definitely makes sense to install your games on an SSD. If you are working with a limited amount of storage on your SSD, the best way to approach it would be to prioritize your most played games and used programs and install those on your SSD and then put everything else on your secondary hard drive.
Final Verdict: An SSD Won’t Give You Higher Framerates, But They Are Still Worth It for Gamers
If you are looking to build a budget-friendly gaming computer, or you want to upgrade your existing system to improve the performance you’re getting in games, choosing an SSD won’t boost your average framerate.
However, with the prices of SSDs continually dropping in relation to mechanical hard drives, it is hard to recommend even gamers with a low budget to opt for a hard drive over an SSD.
But, if you have the need for a lot of storage space (video editing, content creation, etc.) then pairing an SSD with a larger mechnical hard drive is a good way to go.
