Is it true that an SSD for gaming is a bad idea? I was told that constantly downloading games to it can wear down and shorten its life. It was then suggested that I buy a mechanical HD instead.
What do you guys think of this?
No, it's not bad, but the cost factor for the larger Hard drives, and the size of today's game is why most use a mech drive for games. Maps will load quicker on a SSD, but performance is the same game wise
As far as your OS, you should definitely use a SSD
I disagree i use a 250mb SSD for D3 WoW HS
Performance is much better with my SSD faster terrain loading in WoW With my Hybrid i get small jerks and takes a bit longer for terrain to load.
Game play on my SSD is smooth and faster Game load that has nothing to do with performance ofc.
But Game performance is much better on my SSD, the trouble is ofc the constant writing to my SSD is what will kill any SSD Fast, as you and others pointed out.
So my advice and others use for OS and then only the common programs, i would then get a Hybrid and install the software you use a lot on the Hybrid and move the temp folder from SSD to Hybrid the constant writing deleting will kill your SSD fast.
As to Trim well its a personal preference i do not use it. even though many report better performance.
I did not notice any improvement using Trim.
So i have my OS on a 250 gb SSD
all my other Programs PowerDVD Openoffice notepad My Movies you name it, i have on a 3TB Hybrid
I then use another 250GB SSD for D3 wow and HS and heroes of the storm.
and then another 3TB for my Steam and Origin Games.
Then i Have 2x 3TB Hybrids where i have my Blu-ray and DVD's the first thing i do when i buy a new Blu Ray is to back it up to my PC so i can use my Surround my Blu Ray player is way to noisy.
I have had my Steam and EA games on an SSD for years. It is as healthy as it always has been. It will not shorten it's life. Newer models will come out and you will want to upgrade long before the SSD wears out. As far as turning off trim, you would have to go to a lot of trouble to do it. Plus it is programmed into the SSD controller board, not to mention turning it off is counterproductive.
SSDs do have limited writes but that value is so high it is difficult to reach in normal use. Most drives fail from other causes long before limited writes becomes a factor. Often it is the small size of these drives that is the problem. A drive that is more than big enough now will often seem quite small in a few years and is replaced for that reason.
Many people are so concerned about limited writes that they offload so much from the SSD that they lose mush of it's performance, the reason why they purchased it in the first place.
To day the only significant disadvantage of SSDs is their higher cost. In time that will disappear and conventional drives will become obsolete.
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