Most seasoned gamers prefer installing SSDs (Solid State Drives) to HDDs (Harbor Disk Drives) in their computers to enhance speed and performance. It’s because the former option is more durable and faster. But, the big concern in the minds of many novice gamers is choosing the right SSD in terms of capacity. The operating files of many performance-intensive games can take up around 30GB to 50GB of storage. When you factor in the space that the operating system files will occupy in your disk space, a 500GB SSD provides you with enough storage for gaming.
The Evolution of Gaming Storage
Video game development has been going on for quite a long time. Game play time also varies greatly. In the earlier days of Nintendo cartridges, games used to range from 8KB to 6MB. When the PlayStation came out, games expanded to over 650MB.
AAA games can easily occupy a huge amount of space. They range from 4 GB to 100 GB. Many of the lower-spectrum games have a memory capacity ranging from 4GB to 10 GB. While Indies games are smaller, they are still bulky. There is no guarantee that an indie game will be as big as a high-end AAA game.
Because of the advances in technology, video games can now run on much more powerful devices. This allows you to play more detailed games at higher resolutions. All these good graphics come at a cost: you need to increase the capacity and speed of your PC. For instance, Forza 7 can go up to 100GB even though it’s profoundly compressed.
It will be very difficult to play games smoothly if your PC barely meets the requirements for some games. You might have problems such as the game not starting because of insufficient disk space, Rainbow Six Siege lag spikes, Fallout 4 crashing, and so on. Therefore, you should have enough space on your hard drive for the game to run smoothly.
What is an SSD?
SSDs are one type of storage device that does not have moving parts but works entirely on the principle of transmitting electrical signals. SSD drives don’t have disks but instead store data by using magnetic tape. Compared to a hard drive which has moving parts, an SSD is much faster because it doesn’t have any of the spinning parts. It does not suffer from any latency issues like RAM, so it can read and write data much more quickly.
An SSD has many memories integrated into a circuit board that looks like a large flash drive. These chip-based memories hold data that is stored electronically and are read or written quickly by a computer. Hard drives, on the other hand, have moving parts, such as disks and read/ write heads, and are slower than SSD devices.
Is 500GB SSD Adequate for Gaming?
If you’ve decided to buy a gaming PC, you should look into buying an SSD to help you boost the speed of your computer. If you love storing many games on your computer simultaneously, a fast SSD with a high capacity is the best option.
Buying a fast SSD is not only a great option, and it’ll also help you to save bandwidth. SSDs allow you to play more intense games, but skimpy SSD storage will only cause your computer to perform weaker. SSDs are faster and more durable than HDDs and are ideal for storing large amounts of data (or even thousands of files) to install many games at once.
But is a 500GB SSD good for gamers? The answer is yes; it is good for most gaming and other tasks requiring high performance. If you have a 500GB SSD, you should be able to play many of your favorite games simultaneously. The OS will take up to 15GB of space on your computer. After considering all the other files, this will leave you with 480GB for video games.
On the other hand, games will occupy anywhere from 30GB to 50GB of storage space on a typical computer. Consequently, a 500 GB SSD is enough to enjoy gaming on our PC without needing external HDDs. That means you can actually store 8 to 10 games in the 500GB SSD. As you may have noticed, when shopping for the right size of SSD, when advertising for capacity, marketers count 1000MB = 1GB. For purposes of the calculation in Operating System X, 1024MB = 1GB. Therefore, 500 x 1.024 = 512GB.
SSD vs. HDD For Gaming
When you’ve got a computer that needs a lot of storage, it can be very frustrating to be confronted with all the options. Your hard drive holds your games and any pre-loaded files you use to play online games. You also need enough space to store all the data you need. You should have a hard drive or SSD to store all the games you want to play and any other files you store. Hard drives and SSDs both store data, but the storage technology is very distinct.
Here are the parameters to look at when choosing between an SSD and HDD:
1. Cost
Choosing a hard drive vs. an SSD shouldn’t be a binary matter. You can use 3.5 and 4-terabyte hard drives or a combination of hard drives and SSDs to keep your computer running smoothly and keep your data safe. Look at the fastest, biggest drives that are compatible with your system to determine which drives are the best for your needs. If it’s expensive, you should consider using an SSD instead of a hard drive. The Crucial® System Scanner is an example of a great tool that will give you a list of all the drives that are supported by your system, so you can buy an SSD that is right for you.
2. Capacity
Drives are available in many different sizes and capacities. Modern games demand a huge amount of memory, so storage drives with limited capacity aren’t necessary. Usually, drives that are between 500GB and 2TB are chosen based on the cost performance. SSD capacities are increasing rapidly and are fast taking over HDDs. As the SSD market expands and grows, hard drive manufacturers are struggling to compete with SSDs because they need to offer a higher density to drive more data.
3. Speed
HDDs and SDDs work well for gaming as long as they are large enough to hold enough games and fast enough to support modern graphics. However, HDDs can’t do as good a job as SDDs when it comes to gaming because they take longer to load a game. SSDs are ready when you are and can load more games quickly.
There are many other benefits to using SSD drives, including saving space and having more free space. If your computer is slow and you often have to wait for programs to load, having an SSD can help you load games faster. SSDs are great for boosting your gaming PC’s speed and performance compared to HDDs.
No one likes to sit and wait for their favorite game to load. If this happens to you, especially if a game only loads one level after you play it, you will know how annoying it is. When Levels are loaded into your computer, it will collect all the files and objects that are in the game and transfer them to your RAM. This will be very slow because your computer will not be able to quickly access the data that your RAM stores. If you use an old-style hard drive instead of an SSD, the process of launching games will be much slower. SSDs are faster than hard drives when it comes to loading up games.
4. Durability
The spinning arms and platters found in HDDs are susceptible to damage, which makes SSDs more durable because they don’t have any spinning parts. SSDs are durable, can withstand being bounced around, and still protect your files and information safely. SSDs are built to last for years and offer extra resistance against shock and vibration, especially for people who travel a lot. Furthermore, because SSD drives remain cooler at all times compared to hard drives, they can last longer.
Your fan doesn’t have to work as hard to cool the system at high speeds. This means you’ll get less noise from your fan, and your computer will run more quietly. Once you have your 500GB SSD installed, you won’t hear the humming sound you often hear when using the HDD anymore. In addition, SSDs can maintain more consistent operating temperatures because they access data by using flash memory, not spinning platters. Hence, you can enjoy several hours of gaming time because the system temperatures will be low.
SSDs also require very little energy to operate because they don’t contain any spinning parts. Investing in a 500GB SSD is one way of ensuring you prolong the life of your laptop’s battery. If you’re going with an SSD, the good news is that it is easy to simply remove the old drive and insert a new one. There are many good reasons why you should go with an SSD or combine an SSD with an HDD to play games faster. SSDs perform faster, are quieter, have more capacity, are better able to handle high temperatures, and are more energy efficient.
Wrapping Up
Each game install will require between 30GB and 50GB of data, so a 500GB SSD will be able to store enough data to run at least eight games at any one time. If you don’t plan on having too many different games installed on your system at once, a 500GB SSD is sufficient to run all your games. Note that you can always remove old games to make room for new ones after you’ve finished them.
