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{"meta":{"keywords":"ssd, hdd, gaming-pc, storage, experience, components","description":"In our quest to give our gaming experience an edge… us to enjoy our games the way the devs intended."},"active":true,"show_in_home":true,"show_as_recent":false,"show_as_popular":false,"_id":"6283e85b27b99cfef8bbf854","aid":"ssd-or-hdd","big_image_path":"ssd-or-hdd-big.jpg","date":"05/17/2022","elements":[{"content":"<p>Most of us focus on getting ever better chips and architectures, be it for task management (CPU) or to handle the massive graphics new games throw at us (GPU).</p><p><br></p><p>However, other components, like state-of-the-art storage units, will make your gaming experience infinitely more enjoyable.</p><p><br></p><p>Storage units are often and simply regarded as pieces of hardware that contain our games. More storage means more titles that can be accessed instantly. However, they affect a lot more than just the size of our library. They also affect the way games behave in more than one way, especially those huge open-world titles that rely on ever more intensive map loads.</p><p><br></p><p>Let's dive into this topic in more detail.</p><p><br></p><h2>Do Hard Drives Affect Custom Gaming PC Performance?</h2><p><br></p><p>Many articles and experts out there will give you a range of answers that will vary from “it depends” to “not much”. However, they do affect the way we play our games in different ways.</p><p><br></p><p>For example, some games will only require one pass at loading a level or map. This is the case of eSports games in general, as they are extremely optimized for one map or level load, making your processors do all the heavy lifting during the whole match. Having the fastest hard drive won't make a difference in terms of FPS or input lag. However, having a mechanical HDD will affect game start waiting times, level loading, creating or loading saved games, and some other minor tasks. Think of it this way, storage speed will impact the times you start a level per hour. Say, you like playing fight games that only perform a general load per scenario. A magnetic drive with mechanical parts will maybe allow you to play 15 matches per hour, while a solid-state drive might increase that number to 20 or more matches on average (YMMV).</p><p><br></p><p>The same principle applies to many open-world games that are optimized for loading the whole map and then leaving your drive alone. They will make you wait long load times if you have a slow storage component and will add more wait times whenever you visit new areas. Additionally, your game might stutter if it needs to fetch additional files for the next encounter.</p><p><br></p><p>This is extremely annoying when playing heavily modded games that require reading thousands of scattered files constantly instead of one optimized original source.</p><h2>SSD Vs HDD: Which One Should I Get?</h2><p>As we said, it depends on what you want to achieve. However, SSDs provide a lot more advantages than mechanical drives for essentially the same price.</p><p><br></p><p>Due to their lack of moving parts, solid-state drives are more energy-efficient and give you instant access to the stored information. It does not have to spin a complicated set of mechanical parts to locate the right clusters and sectors that hold your information. This immensely improves loading speeds. These features also affect durability as SSDs are not prone to failure due to mechanical breakdown or impact. They did show some wearing issues when the technology was still young, but newer components show no significant differences in terms of long-term durability when compared to their HDD counterparts.</p><p><br></p><p>SSDs are also quieter and help you keep internal temperatures down as they do not generate heat. What's more, they allow for better airflow control given their slimmer dimensions.</p><p><br></p><p>The difference in capacity between these two options was almost imperceptible not long ago. However, the increased demand for solid-state drives, and their constant hikes in terms of gigabyte-per-dollar, has driven the SSD technology forward. Nowadays, SSDs have started to take over HDDs in terms of storage capacity.</p><p><br></p><p>In short, there are no reasons not to get an SSD drive for your computer. In fact, an SSD alone can breathe new life into an old or slow gaming PC.</p><h2>What's the Best SSD Form Factor For My Gaming PC?</h2><p>The most common form factor for SSDs is the Serial AT Attachment (SATA). Drives equipped with SATA interfaces use the same data transmission technology as HHDs, so they require at least two cables: one for powering the drive, and one for data transmission. This contributes to cable cluttering and is not the most efficient nor elegant solution. Also, while they're incredibly fast, they are still limited by their SATA interface, capped at 600 MB/s.</p><p><br></p><p>The solution was to plug the solid-state drive directly into the motherboard by using the PCIe slot. This provides a constant read-write speed of 3.5 GB/s (almost 6 times faster than SATA-based drives). M.2 NVMe SSDs also free up a lot of space inside your PC, making cable management a breeze, and allowing you to use that extra space for better cooling solutions and RGB lighting.</p><p><br></p><p>NVMe drives are a bit more costly, but they offer a lot more speed and take up a lot less space, making them the best option for high-performance gaming PCs.</p><p><br></p><p>So, your best bet is to install an SSD drive and enjoy the perks of having blazingly fast load speeds for your OS and games. Here at CLX Gaming we carry the latest solid-state drives and will help you put together a high-performance gaming PC that will outperform anything you throw against it.</p>","id":"p0","sort_index":0,"type":"paragraph"}],"mid_image_path":"ssd-or-hdd-mid.jpg","sid":"pc-parts-benchmark","small_image_path":"ssd-or-hdd-small.jpg","sub_title":"In our quest to give our gaming experience an edge, we often try to get state-of-the-art components that give our custom gaming PCs a boost","title":"Should Your Custom Gaming PC Have An SSD? Let's Talk Storage"}
