Raid 0 still viable for gaming drive?

[ronbo613]

SSD + HD for storage. Simplify your life and start playing games.

 

[Spungo]

It's not read times you want for games as much as access time.

Not really. Games read data in a very linear way, and they read the data in large blocks. A regular hard drive does that quite well. I have all of my games installed on a regular 1.5TB drive that is probably 5 years old, and I've never had any slowness when playing games.

It seems a lot of games account for the way regular hard drives work when it comes to managing data. For example, Fallout 3's DLC packs are contained in 1 .esm file each. Games like Quake would keep data in large .pak files. Even the original Doom kept the majority of its data in .wad files. When defrag sees these as single files, it tries to put them together as one large block on the hard drive. As a result, there's not much of an issue with access time. All of this data is located in very close proximity on the hard drive.

The rare cases where a game does have significant load time, the load time is often caused by bad programming rather than actual hardware limitations. Fallout 4's pathetic load times are actually hard coded into the game.

 

[moonbogg]

This is the first time I've been without any HDD's in my rig. I bought a 1TB 850 EVO and ditched the raid 0 HHD's. They are never going back in. Also, regarding these people who say, "I need 10TB of space cause music, movies, derp". I say these people don't need that much space and if they do, they have bigger problems than running out of drive space. They are digital age hoarding binary pack rats and have nothing of value on those drives.

 

[Cerb]

This is the first time I've been without any HDD's in my rig. I bought a 1TB 850 EVO and ditched the raid 0 HHD's. They are never going back in. Also, regarding these people who say, "I need 10TB of space cause music, movies, derp". I say these people don't need that much space and if they do, they have bigger problems than running out of drive space. They are digital age hoarding binary pack rats and have nothing of value on those drives.

So, don't ever listen to your music, and pretend that anything not available for streaming doesn't exist? Yeah, great idea.

Though, what that has to do with SSDs, much less any PC you're going to log into locally on a regular basis, shall remain a mystery.

 

[Cerb]

Not really. Games read data in a very linear way, and they read the data in large blocks. A regular hard drive does that quite well. I have all of my games installed on a regular 1.5TB drive that is probably 5 years old, and I've never had any slowness when playing games.

It seems a lot of games account for the way regular hard drives work when it comes to managing data. For example, Fallout 3's DLC packs are contained in 1 .esm file each. Games like Quake would keep data in large .pak files. Even the original Doom kept the majority of its data in .wad files. When defrag sees these as single files, it tries to put them together as one large block on the hard drive. As a result, there's not much of an issue with access time. All of this data is located in very close proximity on the hard drive.

One has nothing to do with the other. The data can be scattered across the drive, and if you don't have massive amounts of free space, probably is. The games don't load all the content, but open the files and map offsets to small pieces of them, either directly accessing that, or loading that data like a smaller file. It takes up less space, requires less CPU work, and is easier to CRC. It also makes it easier to pack expansions, mods, etc.. The defragger stops caring after the chunks are sizable enough (it used to be 64MB, but I don't know if they've stuck to that or not).

How it loads is all dependent on how the game is made to work, even with those packed files. Most game data, though, that's too large to preload and keep loaded, is going to be on the large side.

Example of SSD loading much quicker, for a game known for its long load times.

 

[moonbogg]

So, don't ever listen to your music, and pretend that anything not available for streaming doesn't exist? Yeah, great idea.

Though, what that has to do with SSDs, much less any PC you're going to log into locally on a regular basis, shall remain a mystery.

You may add anything I say to your sig, because wisdom is rare, and true risdom is warer.

 

[Cerb]

You may add anything I say to your sig, because wisdom is rare, and true risdom is warer.

It's been the same for awhile, so done .

I just recently ripped several DVDs, coming in over 100GB (not even 10 titles, but typical 7.5GB+/disc, and 1-3 discs each). Not on Netflix, not on Amazon, and not on Hulu+ (two of the movies are on Hulu+, but no extras, which I do want, and watch, especially when it comes to Criterion titles). It adds up quickly, even without doing BDs. They then go straight to a file server, which is where media like that belongs.

 

[Termie]

Anyone who's ever tried loading BF4 off a hard drive and found themselves joining a match 3 minutes after it's started will know that hard drives /= SSDs for game loading.

 

[Spungo]

Example of SSD loading much quicker, for a game known for its long load times.

Your example demonstrates the exact opposite of what you just argued.
SSD ( Samsung EVO 250 ): 27 seconds
HDD ( Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB ): 49 seconds

4k sequential read rate of that particular HDD is 155MB/s
I can't find an SSD called an EVO 250, so I'll go with the EVO 850 that is 250GB in size.
4k sequential read rate of that paricular SSD is 487MB/s

ratio of real life load times (HDD/SSD):
49/27 = 1.81

ratio of sequential read speeds (SSD/HDD):
487/155 = 3.14

So based on the raw sequential speed of the hard drive, GTA 5 should load 3.14x faster when using an SSD, and that's if the file load is completely 100% sequential with no seek time. In real world testing, it's nowhere near that much faster. The SSD is significantly less important than you said it should be.

 

[moonbogg]

It's been the same for awhile, so done .

I just recently ripped several DVDs, coming in over 100GB (not even 10 titles, but typical 7.5GB+/disc, and 1-3 discs each). Not on Netflix, not on Amazon, and not on Hulu+ (two of the movies are on Hulu+, but no extras, which I do want, and watch, especially when it comes to Criterion titles). It adds up quickly, even without doing BDs. They then go straight to a file server, which is where media like that belongs.

YES that's awesome. Now I'll be with you in spirit everywhere on the forums. Also yeah, that's a lot of space. I just don't have any need for HDD's and I am primarily a gamer, so I figured anyone who needs more than I do must be doing life wrong or something

Anyone who's ever tried loading BF4 off a hard drive and found themselves joining a match 3 minutes after it's started will know that hard drives /= SSDs for game loading.

Its funny because I have been on an SSD since 2010 or so and as game load times have increased, I haven't noticed due to having an SSD. I bet if I used a HDD to load BF4 I would be stunned. I want to do it just so I can realize how good I got it with the SSD. I might get around to trying that, or I can watch some HDD/SSD comparison videos on youtube.

 

[Cerb]

Your example demonstrates the exact opposite of what you just argued.

No, it doesn't. It shows an actual example of a game that is faster with an SSD.

So based on the raw sequential speed of the hard drive, GTA 5 should load 3.14x faster when using an SSD, and that's if the file load is completely 100% sequential with no seek time. In real world testing, it's nowhere near that much faster. The SSD is significantly less important than you said it should be.

How it loads is all dependent on how the game is made to work

How much is that, exactly? I was saying that the argument that big packed files imply sequential access is wrong. That's no more correct than that a big MDF or PST is sequentially accessed. It's a good logical way to organize and manage the data, nothing more.

Even games that do benefit significantly from SSDs, in terms of load times, won't gain as much as any synthetic benchmark would show, because the games aren't just waiting on the drive, but also doing a lot of CPU and RAM work.

But, even then, updates, loading saves (often including the lists, which can be a time-waster if playing a game where you're dying often), managing mods, etc., are just so much quicker on an SSD, that I'd only use an HDD if the space were an issue.

I just don't have any need for HDD's and I am primarily a gamer, so I figured anyone who needs more than I do must be doing life wrong or something

My father has just the other view. Be a digital packrat with all sorts of things that'll get used once--or never!--but why waste a perfectly good computer on a video game?