Installing an SSD Hard Drive - Is it worth it apart from booting time?

I have bought a new computer and is it worth it installing an SSD Hard Drive apart from booting time? I will mostly be using the PC for gaming, flight simulation, programming and running Virtual Machines. I already have a 1TB SATA3 7200rpm HDD in it so I don't know if it's worth buying an SSD. As in brief, I have an i7 4.4GHz CPU, 64GB DDR4 RAM, GeForce 1080 (x2) SLI graphic cards. It's a high-end PC because I want it to last for a very long time.

So, again, is it really worth the SSD? Maybe how about if I had to install a 256GB SSD and install all the programs on the 1TB normal HDD?

It is. And it's not just boot time. Almost everything you do feels more snappy.
Browsing explorer, starting the browser. Even checking out that picture your mother send you. And yeah, levels in games load faster too.
I'll say, with an amazing PC like that, you owe it to yourself investing in some high performing storage.

I have no mechanical drive in my PC anymore. I got 750gb flash storage and 100GB on google Drive.
That's enough for me. If i need more, i'll buy another SSD or invest in a network drive away from my PC, so i don't get the sound of a mechanical drive.

_Glitch said:

It is. And it's not just boot time. Almost everything you do feels more snappy.
Browsing explorer, starting the browser. Even checking out that picture your mother send you. And yeah, levels in games load faster too.
I'll say, with an amazing PC like that, you owe it to yourself investing in some high performing storage.

I have no mechanical drive in my PC anymore. I got 750gb flash storage and 100GB on google Drive.
That's enough for me. If i need more, i'll buy another SSD or invest in a network drive away from my PC, so i don't get the sound of a mechanical drive.

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So, will a 256GB SSD be enough or would you get maybe get at least a 500GB for it? I will then store everything on the 1TB normal HDD.

I'll say only you can answer that.
The most important is having the OS and all commonly used programs on the SSD. The files and games can be put on the HDD.
So for most 120gb is properly gonna be fine if they can live with slow storage for their other files.

I just prefer not having the sound of that spinning harddrive, and i also enjoy how fast my files are handled by other programs and how games are loading faster.
However, having games on the SSD is some expensive few seconds faster loading time. I just hate HDD's enough to spend that money.

Any SSD will be a drastic improvement over a traditional mechanical HDD in almost every sense.

What type of ssd are we talking, however? SATA based are most used, there are other faster types like nvme pcie ssd which make a normal sata SSD look like a shitty HDD.. man thats alot of abbv.

What about investing in an M2 SSD or PCI SSD?

DanielPatrick said:

What about investing in an M2 SSD or PCI SSD?

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I own 2 and they are amazing, if you can fit them in the budget.

I have already bought a 256GB SSD. The thing that I'm worried about it that I will be installing some apps on the SSD and mostly it will be used for Virtual Machines. So, let's say I have two Virtual Machines that I set them to be at least 25GB each. That's already using 50GB of space on my SSD, right? That's the only thing why I was going to buy a 1TB SSD. I'm feeling confused as I'm not sure if whether it's worth buying it or not.

Yes, if you point the target storage device as the SSD the data will be saved on the SSD.

Yes, but you can imagine how much space each Virtual Machine would take on the hard disk. Therefore, I think it's better if I invest in a 1TB HDD.

Use the SSD as your OS and some applications, and then just store the virtual hard disk files on the HDD.

You didn't specify if it is a laptop or a desktop, but with the above specs I am assuming it's a desktop.

DanielPatrick said:

Yes, but you can imagine how much space each Virtual Machine would take on the hard disk. Therefore, I think it's better if I invest in a 1TB HDD.

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Depends on your VMs. You can also thin provision ones you don't envision using your entire allotment.

voyagerfan99 said:

Use the SSD as your OS and some applications, and then just store the virtual hard disk files on the HDD.
You didn't specify if it is a laptop or a desktop, but with the above specs I am assuming it's a desktop.

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It's a high-end gaming desktop PC.

beers said:

Depends on your VMs. You can also thin provision ones you don't envision using your entire allotment.

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I didn't actually understand what you mean here.

I was going to buy the Samsung Pro 500GB SSD just in case and I'll store all the rest of the files on the 3TB SATA3 HDD. I think it would be the best option.

DanielPatrick said:

I was going to buy the Samsung Pro 500GB SSD just in case and I'll store all the rest of the files on the 3TB SATA3 HDD. I think it would be the best option.

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That will work fine, as that is what most people that have an SSD generally do.

This is referring to my laptop. The SSD (other than the larger than needed DRAM) is the best upgrade I have done. The speed of boot up and loading of large programs like Photoshop and Premiere Pro is a fraction of what used to be in HDD.

After saying that, I also would consider that most of the transactions are done thru the web. So you would still run into the bottleneck issue of the slowest part of the system. But I guess SSD would speed up the cache if it has to read and write from the drive.

I started out with the 256gb and upgraded to the 512gb. I got into video editing which takes up a lot of disk space. When it was pushing the limit of the 512, I found a solution that seems to work well but a lot more economical. I bought a DVD caddy for $8 from eBay, and swapped out the not-too-frequently-used DVD with the original 1tb HDD. I moved all the data to the HDD, leaving the SSD for only system and program files. Now the SSD is half used, plenty of room to load more program (I think I maybe able to get away with the 256gb SSD).

Right now, I am looking into upgrading the 1TB HDD to the 2TB and that should give me plenty of space for the next couple of years.

_Glitch said:

......... i'll buy another SSD or invest in a network drive away from my PC, so i don't get the sound of a mechanical drive.

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Sound of a mechanical drive? My fans make more noise!

You should get the SSD. If you can afford a 1TB SSD, get it. If you can afford a 2TB SSD, get it. It makes a huge difference.
If your board supports it, you should go M.2 (which costs more but is much faster) with a high end M.2 SSD of the largest capacity you can afford. Otherwise get a quick SATA SSD.

Definitely put the Sim on the SSD. All the other crap goes into the platter. Never defrag a SSD, make sure AHCI is on before you install and let Windows format it for a proper alignment.

Thanks a lot for all your help guys! Now, a quick question. Would you go for the Samsung 500GB 850 Evo SSD 3D V-NAND or the Samsung 512GB EVO Pro SSD? What's the difference between the two? I have the Alienware Aurora R5 so it should be able to support both? Can someone correct me on this please?

There is no evo pro ssd there is 850 pro and 850 evo