M.2 vs SSD vs HDD - Best Storage for Gaming

What’s the difference between a M.2 NVMe solid-state drive, a 2.5” SATA SSD and a mechanical hard drive, and which one should you choose for your next gaming PC build?
Speed, capacity, price and more - let’s explain these storage devices and how to choose the best drive.
Check out PC storage over at Ebuyer:
M.2 SSDs: www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/...
SATA SSDs: www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/...
HDDs: www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/...

[@JalapenoPrime]

I actually have a mix of the 3, m.2 for boot, SSD for current games and a 4tb for older games. All work great!

[@zh0ii818]

smart!

[@sohelrahman441]

I dont even have any pc 😅

[@LisaSimpsonLiberal]

​@@sohelrahman441😂😂😂

[@mythicplays_yt]

​@@LisaSimpsonLiberalbro 💀💀💀

[@nunyadambusiness3530]

we get it. you're a liberal who also hates poor people while also claiming they need welfare. how hypocritical. @@LisaSimpsonLiberal

[@JeriDro]

I feel overwhelmed with all the possibilities and choices..

[@beachlife2968]

Life's gonna be tough for you if 3 choices fries your brain 🤣

[@RXAD80]

Find extra hdds to add ram, back up and stuff , separate OS. Ssd goes insanely fast 20 tabs two diff browsers writing and downloading and watching videos on the gpu games go off. Then hdd for extra fun stuff bc old hard drives work better w the diff file systems they like. All are good. Get 50 hdd and coolers and have a honeypot home server

[@gabbe35gamer]

me 2... me 2

[@xtranathor8143]

This was a great video, thank you! You've quickly taught me the differences between the drives, including the speeds; very informative!

[@ethengreen]

I have a 256gb M.2 SSD for Windows and other programmes. And I have a 4tb Samsung Spinpoint HDD For my game launchers like Steam and Ubisoft Connect and all the games for those launchers. Great Video James. Well done.

[@kashfox1050]

Very helpful information, thank you

[@ZGamerHQ]

Loved the energy. Subscribed.

[@Aboleo80]

I got 2 NVMe 2tb each, 2 SSD 4 and 1 TB, 2 HDD 2 TB each, and 1 external wd black 5TB hdd. I mainly keep older games from GoG on my HDD drives and use them for file backup.

[@jacobhawkins8635]

I got a 8 TB WD Black HDD and its still good for most games

[@Reichsritter]

hdds suck for gaming

[@jacobhawkins8635]

@@Reichsritter a lot games use on-demand texture streaming so i get ssd's are mandatory in some cases, however im not playing the newest games put on it either. Half-life, portal, cs2 stuff like that.

[@victorrtoxity]

is it a good option to get 1tb nvme and 1tb sata ssd? i will use them just for gaming

[@RBYW1234]

outta memory, what do? download to external drive right? SSD?

[@Dsh9x]

My case can have 2 3.5 hhds or 4 2.5 SSD I was thinking to get a m.2 for boot drive and a 24TB hhd for random stuff like pictures and videos and notes and 2 ssds for games

[@mammamia2418]

THANKS!

[@AndysEastCoastAdventures]

I use gen4 nvme for windows boot, ssd for games & programmes and external usb 3 HD's for media storage. Mainly because of price, media will eventually go on ssd drives at some point. M2 is so much faster than the rest it's beyond compare.

[@Phil_AKA_ThundyUK]

Definitely run some form of RAID if you're filling up a 16TB HDD... can you imagine losing that at capacity wowser.

[@IvanGenio22]

But what about the limitations of flash memory vs the disk of a HDD? Doesn't that change anything on gamining? You read high amounts of data when launching GTA V or a battle royale, so while the SSD while launch the game faster, it also has a shorter life span, right?

[@RusRus72]

Ssd wear out from writing into them to much, hdds are good as a budget option for a game drive

[@enjay8950]

Right now my local pc store has gen 3 m.2 drives for the same cost as 2.5" ssd's. as we can see m.2 is becoming the only way to go

[@truth-12345.]

I don't know if using an NVMe over SATA SSD is worth it, the loading time of games difference is just a second or a fraction of a second.

[@TrickZ_Retz]

Any odd HDD will be an upgrade to my 2009 100 mb/s Read/Write Hitachi HDD. Diskreader tells me that thing has been running for 65.000 Hours so i'll give respect where its due. I'll propably get a 2-4 TB Seagate, so i finally dont have to uninstall games i am currently not playing to make space for others

[@Reaper1008]

I have a 1TB HDD in my PC.. Our Walmart.. were I work.. We have a, either 1 or 2TB M.2 for just around $145 (-/+).. and wondered if that was worth getting to put some modern games on that say they require one.

[@Auto-Tech-Matt]

I just recently purchased a gen 4 m.2 for boot and a second m.2 (gen 3) for games. Newegg has really good deals on them. I would suggest getting a ssd of any type as it is much faster than a spinning disk drive. Even the cheap ones. I only run flash memory on my pc. Its so inexpensive now.

[@TheDumbassSoldier]

In my understanding M.2 SSD that has like 1TB is the best for gaming and i already found my answear im just gonna use HDD for animation/artwork cuz even tho its slow it has amazing storage :D

[@alphabet6814]

Listing £250 for storage wtf How many games does the average person have

[@RoshanChada-cf5ju]

so overall which one should i use

[@amoh2513]

He told you. If you want maximum speed, go for NVMe SSD and boot on it. If you can't afford an NVMe, boot on a SATA SSD, it's also got good speed and is cheaper than NVMe. But whatever do, don't boot your OS on a hard drive (HDD), it's really slow and will only give you bad experience. You can use it for storage though, it's even cheaper than SSDs. Though this all depends on how many storage slots you have on your laptop/PC. If there's only one 2.5 inch slot, boot on a 2.5 inch SATA SSD and call it a day. Your only other option is an HDD, which is just bad for booting. If you have more than 1 slots, boot on your faster drive and use the others for storage. Before doing any of this though, I'd recommend checking out the specs of your machine. In some cases, the machine isn't compatible with either a type of drive or a certain amount of storage in a given slot. Like in a lot of cases, you can't use an NVMe in an M.2 slot, you can only use an M.2 SATA SSD in it. So an NVMe in this case will only waste your money.

[@miniprodavec]

Cool

[@portman8909]

M.2 for sure. I'm using 2 sticks 1TB each.

[@alexraw627]

Hdd are good for torrent download especially 100gb over with 1gb broadband over. If you do this on nme your cpu will go Berserk € Don't believe that Nvme are the best thing for you .Nvme is good for short high speeds but for long copying and large files Nume are way to slow and give a strain on cpu. I know because I have an 7800x3d and 7900 xtx.

[@nikolaig1]

Nothing is slower tha. Hdd. 😂😂

[@nota9341]

🦗

[@NoEgg4u]

@3:39 -- That Crucial 4TB SATA SSD is a slug. I read and watched reviews, extolling the performance of MX500 drives. So I purchased the 4TB version. Well, the casing is the same as the lower capacity MX500 drives. But the innards are not the same. And I have yet to see a review of the 4TB MX500. And it gets worse. The 4TB MX500 has approximately 25TB of cache (somewhat fast NAND cells). If you write enough data, non-stop, you will fill the faster NAND cells, and the rest of your data (that is still being written) will go directly to the slower NAND cells. You will see performance drop to below 100 MB/s. That is abysmal. When the drive is idle, it will move the data from its faster NAND cells to its slower NAND cells, resulting in your next "write" operations to be at the faster speed. Do a Crystal Disk benchmark test, and specify 50 GB or more for the test (that will force the drive to use its slower NAND cells). When you wake up the next day, you will see the lousy performance results. My 4TB drive was approximately the speed of an empty SATA based mechanical drive. So the only advantage of the 4TB MX500 is that it uses less power than a mechanical drive, and it responds instantly (does not power down like a mechanical drive, where you have to wait for the platters to spin up). Shame on Crucial for using the track record and positive reviews of the other capacities of their MX500 line, and snookering the public into thinking that the 4TB model would have the same performance. And I did not get a counterfeit drive. I purchased it from Best Buy. If you want 4TB of storage space, and speed is not a priority, then consider purchasing this drive. Otherwise, run away. ----- @5:10 -- No damage will occur. You can drop that mechanical drive out of a 5 story building, and you will not damage it (well, you might shake a wire loose -- but no damage will befall the platters or read/write heads or actuator arms). When the drive is powered off, the moving parts get locked in place. It does that preciously to prevent damage, especially during shipping, where the drive gets tossed around. Yes, during shipping it is in a box with packing material. But the jarring would damage the aforementioned parts, if they were not locked in place. If you drop that mechanical drive while it is powered on, then you will very likely kill it. But while powered off, you can whack it with a hammer, and other than the plastic connector, nothing will happen.

[@sapphireglaceon]

yea regular SSDs suck for putting games on them i spent all day yesterday trying to put games from steam and epic on my new 8TB SSD and the verify speed was 1MBs MAX the sad thing is my HDD was able to get all the games on it much faster so no

[@KayLa-sq7cv]

Literally a 100gb file from m.2 to sata transferred in like 2 minutes I don't know what doggy drive u rocking u sure its not a sd card pretending to be a ssd

[@KayLa-sq7cv]

And how much did u pay for it

[@sapphireglaceon]

@@KayLa-sq7cv $530 I think, but it turns out it was nothing more then the slot the SDD was plugged into