Mechanical or SSD

spookypuppy

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I have a question, I'm building a new gaming rig and I was wondering if I should get a 500GB SSD or 2 2TB HDD's. I have almost 1TB of games loaded on my external hard drive at the moment and I'm sure that I'll end up with more. Is there a big difference in loading times between the HDD & SSD for games?
 

My Computer

Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom build
OS
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz
Motherboard
ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO LGA 1150 Intel Z87
Memory
GSkill Sniper Series 16GB DDR3 1866
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ 4GB
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
ASUS VS Series VS238H-P Black 23" 2ms
Screen Resolution
1920 x 1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 840 Series 250GB for OS
Seagate Barracuda 2TB x 2 for storage
PSU
Corsair AX760 Full Modular 80+ Platinum
Case
NZXT Phantom 820
Cooling
COOLER MASTER GeminII S524
Keyboard
Logitech G510 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse
Logitech 400s
Internet Speed
DSL
Antivirus
MalwareBytes & MSE
Browser
Chrome
There is a difference, yes, but only in loading times, not game fluidity/FPS/whatever, and if you say you are likely going to need the additional space... you don't have a lot of choice.
A good thing to do would be to buy a smaller SSD to be your main system drive (where you install Windows 7), say a 256 or even a 160-ish one, and use the rest of the $$$ to buy normal hard drives where all games and other stuff is installed to.

So you get FAST boot times, and general good system responsiveness, and you have lots of space for your games on the other non-SSD drives.

If by "external" you mean you installed the games in a USB drive, then even an internal HDD will load games much faster than that.
 

My Computer

Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
custom built
OS
Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601
CPU
AMD Phenom 9650 QuadCore, revision DR-B3
Motherboard
ASUS M4A78
Memory
5 GB yes I run 2x 2GB and 1x 1GB, different brand, spank me.
Graphics Card(s)
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512 Mb, unknown manufacturer.
Sound Card
Crappy Realtek Integrated Audio
Monitor(s) Displays
Fujitsu Siemens P19-3P
Screen Resolution
1280 x 1024 x 32 bits @ 60 Hz Oh yeah, 4:3 rocks!
Hard Drives
(1) MAXTOR S TM3320613AS SATA Disk Device (2) STM35004 18AS SATA Disk Device (3) TOSHIBA USB 2.5"-HDD
PSU
whatever, around 450w
Case
Scavenged from old company PC, 10+ years old
Cooling
CPU fan, GPU fan, case fan, nothing fancy
Keyboard
Microsoft, PS/2, white.
Mouse
Optical, logitec.
Internet Speed
effective max speeds: 70-ish kB/s down 30-ish kB/s up
Antivirus
Avira, free edition.
Browser
Firefox with FXChrome to make it look like Google Chrome :P
Other Info
Was discarded by previous owner due to "horrible performance".
Was running Win Xp from a IDE drive. Yeah. Was a pain.
SATA II drive and Win7 and it zips away! Yay!
Thanks, I already bought a 250GB SSD for my OS. Yes, my games are currently installed on a 1TB USB drive, some of them take forever to load, but I'm running them on a 3 year old laptop and that doesn't help much :)
 

My Computer

Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom build
OS
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz
Motherboard
ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO LGA 1150 Intel Z87
Memory
GSkill Sniper Series 16GB DDR3 1866
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ 4GB
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
ASUS VS Series VS238H-P Black 23" 2ms
Screen Resolution
1920 x 1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 840 Series 250GB for OS
Seagate Barracuda 2TB x 2 for storage
PSU
Corsair AX760 Full Modular 80+ Platinum
Case
NZXT Phantom 820
Cooling
COOLER MASTER GeminII S524
Keyboard
Logitech G510 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse
Logitech 400s
Internet Speed
DSL
Antivirus
MalwareBytes & MSE
Browser
Chrome
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