Hi guys,
I am considering to build a personal computer and I am wondering whether there is such a big performance difference between SSD and HDD. Doesn’t CPU and RAM has an impact on the performance as well so HDD would be just enough?
Thanks! 
The only differences I know of, is that SSDs create no noise since there are no moving parts, which is the preferred option for people who record their voice while doing something (Unity tutorials). However, they are more susceptible to power failure, and therefore their data is more likely to become corrupted.
So unless you’re willing to spend extra money on SSD backups, then a HDD will be more than enough for you.
SSDs are also faster in terms of boot-up, and file/OS operations such as loading library explorer (on Windows) and transferring files. The difference is very small though. I’ve watched a bunch of “vs” type videos on performance, and the SSD is only around 2 seconds faster than the HDD.
Based on my experience with building my most recent computer, there is a noticeable difference with using an SSD drive as your primary drive. The SSD loads programs and your OS so much faster it’s not even funny.
I have a 2TB standard hard drive I use for data storage, music, and whatnot. I have a few programs and games that I use rarely or don’t care about that load from that drive. I can always tell when things are loading from there instead of the SSD drive.
Get as big an SSD drive as you can for OS and programs, then a large standard HDD for your data. You’ll be glad you did.
12 Likes
I personally would never have multiple drives, purely because the paranoia of having to keep regular backups of them all, would be too great. But I do agree, that generally having an SSD for your OS is a better option than running everything off of a HDD (despite me not wanting to ever do it).
1 Like
I use multiple drives I got SSD for my OS and the app’s I need to load the fast than harddrives for all my documents and general storage.
The SSD will have a pretty massive effect on load times but little effect after things are already in ram. I would never build a PC with no SSD now, but for pure storage harddrives are much larger and more reliable, just are rather slow for loading from.
2 Likes
No need to do so, why backup the os and apps when you can just reinstall all of that when needed. I find it is generally good practice to keep your documents on separate drives from your applications and OS. Means if anything goes wrong software wise you can simply format the os and keep your stuff.
5 Likes
Using an SSD for your Windows partition will work wonders for the bootup time. It’s a first world problem, I know … but it’s so nice.
My current desktop is 2 years old, and I have a SSD that takes care of my OS and my Steam Games (different partition) and it works. I’m not sure how much I am gaining on the games side, but it can’t hurt.
Long story short: you will notice having an SSD, as long as your motherboard supports the max speed of the drive. Mine doesn’t, and it’s still very fast.
5 Likes
Even in that case the SSD had a almost instant random access time while the HDD is slow for many small files due to a physical head needing to move for seeking. For reading of large amounts of non fragmented continuous data the performance between the 2 devices is more similar.
4 Likes
Yeah. I’m not getting full speed, and it is still a big jump in comparison. I don’t reboot a lot though, but I dread ever having to go back to booting a computer with HDD.
It’s also worth mentioning that no moving parts does a lot for stability and disk life. I lot of people with standard HDD in laptop doesn’t realize that moving the computer while it is running is bad for the disk. I’ve seen a lot of laptops die a slow death from being manhandled while the disks were running. Usually, though, it gets replaced before it gets bad, but it’s not good for the disk in the long run.
5 Likes
Keep talking, you’re starting to persuade me.
Yeah on my desktops I got mixes of SSD and HDDs but on my MacBook it is only SSD storage the more solid state components in a device that moves the better.
1 Like
SSDs make a fairly massive difference to performance during heavy disk access, particularly accessing lots of small files or multiple applications trying to access the disk. Less noise and heat are an added bonus.
I’d never even consider buying a machine without any more, especially if using it for development. (Although it’s still useful to have a big HDD as well, if you’ve got a big collection of large games or media files)
But I’ve just had a 4TB WD drive fail on me after only a couple of months, and that’s put me off spinning disks even more… But with some PC games reaching 40GB+ these days, it’s not always practical to go SSD-only yet
5 Likes
There was a 60TB SSD announced by Seagate back in August last year. It’s supposed to have the lowest cost per TB on the market, and be out sometime in 2017. 
SSDs are expensive as hell! 
To be frank, my current laptop has SSD (which is split into two separate drives) with OS installed on it, but as a result, I always suffer from full disk space because some programs just install on C drive (cough Visual Studio cough).
Which is why I’m asking whether or not it’s entirely worth cashing out on one big SSD only to suffer from space loss in the long term.
But from what I read, I guess I’ll go with SSD as primary OS
1 Like
Is it just me or I feel that the bigger SSDs the more unstable they are? 
As far as I know, SSD is much faster, much quieter and allows you to boot OS at ridiculous speed.
However, one really disappointing thing I found out is that flash memory has really short lifespawn in the sense that if you leave it unplugged in about 10 years the data will decay away due to cells losing charge. So it is not a solution for long-term data storage or backup.
3 Likes
No, it’s actually the other way around. The bigger (physically) and the more space an SSD has, the longer it will last before its “Write Exhaustion”. The only reason why SSDs are more likely to fail/get corrupted, is because they work pretty much exactly like RAM sticks. They’re just a bunch of chips with buses, which need power to transfer all-digital data. So when there’s a power outage, an SSD is more likely to get corrupted than a HDD.
Unless that’s not what you meant by “unstable”.
1 Like
The difference is night and day, I would never buy or build a PC today with a mechanical HDD, in fact I would opt for an M.2 SSD which will give you roughly 3x more throughput than a SATA SSD.
Tons of RAM is important too. The CPU though, not so much actually, I’d rather get a cheaper CPU if I had to, to get a faster SSD or more RAM.
4 Likes
Is it bad I’ve never in my life had to replace a faulty hard drive LOL. Like literally ever in 20 something years lol… When I was younger I’d leave my computer on for months (depended if power ever went out) that was the only time it was ever off. Never had a HD go bad on me. The main HD I’m using now is nearly 10 years old and still running like a champ lol.
1 Like
Maybe not bad, but extremely lucky. I once had 4 disks all fail over just two days.
2 Likes