Single bigger M2 or M2 + SSD?

[kanciapagamingroom]

Hey guys!

I am going to buy a new disk for my PC mostly for games and records. I want to buy M2 1TB. I wonder if it is big mistake to use this disk for gaming and recording at the same time to the same disk. Or it would be better to buy M2 500GB + SSD 500GB and use M2 for gaming and SSD for recording? Doest it matter or that's not so important on one bigger M2?

All good for you guys,

 

[AaronD]

I would record to a mechanical drive, even if that's all it does. Cheaper per bit (and you're going to want a LOT of bits!), and doesn't have the write-speed bottleneck that an SSD does.

Solid-state storage - SSD, M2, USB stick, SD card, etc. - is known for its read speed, but not its write speed. It can access anything instantly, without moving a head first and waiting for a disk to come around, but the cells themselves take forever to erase.

Solid-state is awesome for things that mostly read and don't write much, like the operating system and programs, and okay for non-data-intensive user stuff like most people have. But if you're writing a large stream, it's still hard to beat a physical medium that is constantly presenting fresh writable area, and takes it almost instantly.

 

[kanciapagamingroom]

I will not record my stream. I will record mostly a videos around 10-25minutes with CQP at 18 level. So the files won't be that big. So what exactly do you recommend AaronD? HDD for records and M2 for games? Right now I have got SSD for OS, games and softwares like OBS, DaVinci Resolve etc with HDD Sata III for other stuffs. I thought that good idea would be seperate OS from games, OBS, DaVinci Resolve etc...

My english isn't perfects thats why I want to be clear. The best solutions would be:
SSD1: OS
SSD2/M2: games, OBS, DaVinci Resolve etc
HDD: others stuffs and records from OBS?

Where should I export my project from DaVinci Resolve to SSD or also to HDD?

 

[AaronD]

10-25 minutes is well beyond pretty much any cache size, so it might as well be continuous. So yes, I'd use a mechanical drive for that.

I don't think it would help to separate SSD's, unless you're saturating the connection to one of them, or you want to swap them around to mix and match their contents.

As for what to put where, consider how it's used. A mechanical drive can only access one thing at a time, and it takes a while to switch. If you're both reading and writing on the same drive at the same time, it's constantly switching. So it might be worth moving the recordings to a solid-state thing before working with them, so that the mechanical drive only handles the export.

That said though, I don't do that. I have my current project folder(s) on a single mechanical drive, with all the sources in there (my complete library/history is on a redundant pair of *big* USB drives), and I export directly to the project folder on the same mechanical drive. It does slow things down, but I'm okay to just do something else for a while and come back to an already-finished export.

 

[kanciapagamingroom]

Ok thanks. You have helped me a lot. I decided I will buy M2 for games, obs and other software to seperate it from OS SSD. I will keep my projects/records on HDD as I did it now.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Just to clarify - all M.2 drives I've ever seen are SSDs.
Older (original) M.2 driver use a SATA interface, while newer ones use NVMe (which is WAY faster) ... and they are not interchangeable.

AaronD is correct about SSD write implications, though different modern NVMe drives can be optimized for different workloads, so depends on specific make/model/revision

With that said, all SSDs do better when there is LOTS of spare space to work with (allowing good wear levelling).
So for an i7-10700K system with low performance needs (no gaming), I have a simple 250GB SATA SSD for C:\ which includes where I initially save OBS recordings (around 12GB for 80 minutes).. once per week. That drive is over 1/2 empty (for wear leveling considerations). And with lots of open drive space, writing isn't bottlenecked/slowed.
After offsite backup of the Recording, I move the recording to an onboard HDD for archiving
As that HDD is NOT used for anything else, Recording direct to it should work fine.. I just haven't bothered to repoint, test, etc.
And I'm confident with my current data writing volume the SATA SSD will last as long as the PC (or until such time as a larger C:\ is desired)

 

[kanciapagamingroom]

I have ordered M2 PCIE and which is exactly that one: PNY 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe CS1030. I will use this M2 for my software like OBS, DaVinci, games etc. I will record to HDD after I finish I will copy my record to M2 to edit it in DaVinci and then archive it on HDD. I think that's the best solution for me right now.