Solid State Drives - 500GB or 1TB

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  1. Posts : 255
    Windows 10
       #1

    Solid State Drives - 500GB or 1TB


    I am going to have to replace my 500 GB SSD system drive which is showing early signs of failure and I am wondering whether or not to spend a bit extra and get the 1Tbyte one.
    I am currently using about 60% of the SSD capacity so don't need the extra capacity for software. On the other hand having a very ast drive can be useful for certain data read/writes so an option is to get the 1TB drive and partition it, using half for system/app use and the other half for data requiring fast access such as graphic/video work. On the other hand I recall reading that one should avoid frequent read/writes to SSDs as they have a finite capacity for this - less that normal hard drives. This may be outdated information.
    I'd appreciate advice on this.
    The PC is a Windows 10 machine, Intel Core i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz, Z370N WIFI-CF (U3E1) motherboard, and GeForce GTX 1660 graphics,
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  2. Posts : 2,068
    Windows 10 Pro
       #2

    SSD's do have a finite life. With that said, unless you are stress testing it 24x7 just to see how long it takes to fail, you are likely going to outgrow capacity long before you wear it out. I still have an 80GB Intel SSD from around 2009....but its so tiny now that it just sits on a shelf in my computer room.

    My vote would be for the 1TB drive. The prices have really come down now and with a limited number of ports (m2 slots, or sata connections), having a few medium size drives to me makes more sense than a whole bunch of small drives.

    I just put a 2TB NVMe drive into my new box, but I run VM's and play video games. My 2 Call of Duty games are taking up about 240GB of space and Halo Master Chief collection is taking another 120GB of so. That's about 360GB...and would nearly fill a 500GB drive.
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  3. Posts : 255
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks. I don't play games but recognising that I am to old now to ever fly planes again for real I was thinking of getting Flight Simulator. That will need quite a bit more space than my present setup. That was planned as a Christmas present from family but prevented by shortages due to the pandemic - couldn't get a joystick!
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  4. Posts : 2,068
    Windows 10 Pro
       #4

    Flight simulator will take about 115GB if I remember correctly. It's also very system resource intensive too, so you will want to make sure that you have a pretty solid setup for a good experience.
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  5. Posts : 281
    Win 10 21H2 LTSC
       #5

    My usual rule when deciding on capacity, is I try to aim for max 50 % utilisation, it would feel odd buying a drive knowing I am almost filling it from the off, but also I also try look for the price per gig sweet spot.

    On uk pricing MX500's are £57 for 500 gig and £90 for 1tb, if the pricing is similar in your location, 1tb would be a good bet.
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  6. Posts : 5,899
    Win 11 Pro (x64) 22H2
       #6

    I kind of think in depends on how you're handling your data and how many drives you have in your system

    Example, since I have 5 SSD drives in my system (no HDD drives) and each drive is dedicated to a specific data type - OS, Games, Photos, music, local downloads. I find I don't need a large OS drive so mine is just a 512gig, which is the smallest in my system.

    If I only had one drive and decided on a 1TB drive, I might partition the drive into two separate drives so if the OS drives becomes damaged the other partition's data my still be safe.

    Its just a matter of what you want to do.

    And, I agree with Chrysalis, of not filling the drive above (for me) 60 percent but I try to stay a 50.

    My two cents.
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  7. Posts : 2,068
    Windows 10 Pro
       #7

    On my 2TB that I bought, i partitioned it into a 500GB C drive and a 1500MB D drive (for games and VM's).

    The reason for the separation is that I want to be able to do a system backup (image) with Macrium Reflect, but I don't want to backup 350+ GB of Games and 300GB of VM's with my images. This gives me the ability to restore my OS to a known working state by restoring just C. It saves time on the backups and saves space on my backup drive.
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  8. Posts : 5,048
    Windows 10/11 Pro x64, Various Linux Builds, Networking, Storage, Cybersecurity Specialty.
       #8

    pparks1 said:
    Flight simulator will take about 115GB if I remember correctly. It's also very system resource intensive too, so you will want to make sure that you have a pretty solid setup for a good experience.
    Haha! You need a Supercomputer to run the new FS and my main rig is loaded!

    Still a resource hog....

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  9. Posts : 5,899
    Win 11 Pro (x64) 22H2
       #9

    pparks1 said:
    This gives me the ability to restore my OS to a known working state by restoring just C. It saves time on the backups and saves space on my backup drive.
    Why I say if you're going to get a large drive partition it

    pparks1 said:
    On my 2TB that I bought, i partitioned it into a 500GB C drive and a 1500MB D drive (for games and VM's).
    I kind of did the same, that I partitioned a 2TB drive, but I took 100 gig for a Downloads partition that I use for drivers and downloaded apps, then created the other partition strictly for games.

    What's nice about game platforms like Steam is you can easily install or remove games as needed. Thus all those old games I no longer play aren't installed on my drive but are there if I want them. Helps in managing your drive storage.
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  10. cbm
    Posts : 24
    win 10
       #10

    I'd recommend the 1 TB drive. My main rig has 4x 1 TB SSDs and a 256 GB NVME boot drive
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