Hi All! I have approximately 6 hard drives of various size (250GB to 2TB) and differents speeds I have accumulated. I am currently building a gaming rig and want to know if there is a piece of software I can use to test the fastest and best drives to load games onto first?
I am only familiar with AS SSD which isnt the right and dreadfully slow to run on mechanical drives.
Here you go:
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.htm…
That's the gold standard. And you see that on many professionals benchmarks and reviewers.
I recommend an SSD for your OS and Approgram.exe.
The Crucial MX300 was selling for ~$140 here earlier, and that was the 700GB model.
Just combine that with a decent large storage (2TB) HDD to store your media (pictures, music, videos, game files).
just remember, the smaller the drive, the faster it will be, especially the spinners. Get a board with big busses and a good ps, that's haf the battle…
If windows, try to install programs to a separate drive and make documents/my documents on a different drive…
https://sourceforge.net/projects/jdiskmark/ is a free and open source alternative.
SSD's are super cheap now, the bargain-priced MX300, while not a top performer by any means, still outpaces a normal HDD and the sizes start from 250 GB onwards.
With heaps of games coming in at 50-60GB per install, SSD's are just not large enough to store all games. I keep main 2 or 3 games on SSD and rest need to sit on normal harddrives.
Don't see why scrimshaw is getting downvoted for his helpful and factual post.
Crystal Disk benchmark will give you the best case scenario for your drives. The 4k reads will be most relevant to smaller files being loaded, while the sequential reads will give you more information about having to load textures.
AS SSD gives you the worst case scenario for drives. If it's dreadfully slow on your mechanical drives, then that's telling you something surely? I've been gaming on SSDs for a few years, and it definitely makes a nice difference to load times. My current build is SSD only.
I recently got a 1tb SSD for $285. The Crucial MX300 1tb was going for $280 a few weeks ago. They are more affordable than they've ever been, and you can still use SteamMover (or Steam's own folder management) to move games to and from SSDs when you wish to play them.
Just buy an SSD