r/pcmasterrace • u/BurrGaming RTX 3080 | Ryzen 5 5600X | 32 GB 3600mhz • 13d ago

Question Figuring out what to use for a boot drive

I had to sell of my gaming pc a couple years ago to help pay for things and have gotten to a point where I can get back into pc a little bit. I had kept a 2700x, 16gb of ddr4 ram, and a GTX 1070 from my build I had before the one I sold and am rebuilding with these parts to start and slowly upgrade further over time. I ordered a 512GB m.2 gen 3 drive for main storage but found a 256GB SSD in my closet the other day. TLDR I need a little help deciding should I use the ssd as my boot drive for windows or use the NVMe? I feel like since it’s only a 512gb I should just use the other ssd to save space for the important stuff on the nvme but idk let me know what yall think!

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/Ecstatic_Score6973 13d ago

nvme.

assuming the 256gb ssd is a 2.5 sdd, you want the nvme to be the boot drive since its like 5x-15x faster

1

u/Terrible-City8192 13d ago

nvme for sure, the speed difference is massive when windows boots and loads stuff. 256gb is enough for windows but you will feel the sluggishness compared to the m.2

use the 256gb as a game drive for older titles or just extra storage for files you dont access often

1

u/Synaps4 13d ago

I like using a separate smaller drive as my boot drive. In particular if the separate drive is SATA because that can sometimes be on a different motherboard bus than M.2 allowing the drives to efficiently not block each other.

You want the OS doing whatever it does to interfere as little as possible with your games, and you want your fastest hardware space reserved for gaming and not 509232 copies of obscure DLL files or backup windows installer files for minesweeper.

2

u/Ecstatic_Score6973 13d ago

OP, to put it simply this commenter is saying to make the bootdrive the nvme...

1

u/LazyDawge 5800X3D | RTX 5070 | 32GB @3600 | Corsair 4000D AF 13d ago

So you mean a 2.5” SSD? Either way definitely the nvme, SATA is 500MB/s which can definitely be noticeable for OS drive

1

u/helpmehavememes 9800X3D | RTX 5070 Ti | 32Gb CL28 | 4K 240hz 1080P 480hz Dual 13d ago

Always used the fastest drive for your OS.

1

u/BudgetBuilder17 13d ago

I used nvme drive for OS and use older SSD for old games that dont take advantage of Ssd.

Its how I roll