Is the futureproof gaming solution a four drive system?

[DaemonForce]

There is no such thing as a “futureproof solution” for anything in PC building.

I have two heavily supported game libraries built from Steam and Epic accounts.
Their distribution tools are constantly getting stuff added to sync with the world.
If that isn't future-proof then I don't know what the hell is.

As for me, I'm only holding onto the parts I want:
2xSSD (M.2 RAID) for local Windows
2xHDD iSCSI (JBOD) over SFP+ is serving both libraries quite well but the writes suck.
In the future I may obsolete this solution with 2xSSD (SATA RAID) just to improve response times.
My Steam library grows at a steady rate of 40GB/mon.
Epic grows at an unpredictable rate but behaves for now.

 

[Assimilator]

Everyone that wants high performance storage should be using Primocache.

I can’t believe that the idea of RAM caching seems to have been forgotten about. PCTools included it in tne 80’s.

RAM caching was the solution to hard drive latencies being abysmal; SSDs are a different solution that doesn't require you to pay for and install an extra piece of software. Sure an SSD will never be as fast as RAM but that's not the point; the point is that SSDs are good enough to make RAM caching unnecessary for 99.99% of users.

Maybe I'll give PrimoCache a try though, given how much unused RAM I've got knocking around in this system.

 

[Sol_Badguy]

@nomdeplume

The mainpost & thread title make it sound like a spin-off of this video:

Only that it's about gameflow instead of (video editing) workflow.

Sometimes less is more and keeping it as simple as possible without affecting performance and cost is better.
All of this separating games by their drive/storage requirements you'll eventually end up with every type of drive that represents the sweetspot for a certain number of games.
Aren't SATA SSDs too close in price to M.2 Gen3 SSDs right now? Maybe it depends on the region, but where I'm at they are, so that makes them rather poor value. It's true that you can only attach so many M.2s to your mobo but still...

 

[nomdeplume]

The mainpost & thread title make it sound like a spin-off of this video

Only that it's about gameflow instead of (video editing) workflow.

Not sure what response is desired to posting an unrelated video when searching any variation of "gaming+storage type" brings up at least a few thousand videos.

 

[mb194dc]

Massively overcomplicated... when the bottle neck on loading games isn't disk speed usually.

Almost no difference in the real world between sata ssd's and nvme for gaming. If you do other disk intensive stuff, sure go for the fastest.

 

[nomdeplume]

Massively overcomplicated... when the bottle neck on loading games isn't disk speed usually.

Almost no difference in the real world between sata ssd's and nvme for gaming. If you do other disk intensive stuff, sure go for the fastest.

So what do you think the point of exploring each option in a four disk desktop (n disk NAS/JBOD/etc) is in relation to choices right now that might have to fulfill their purpose some distance into the future? For gaming, for the ongoing activity of gaming.

For the cheap seats I'll make it clear again this is a relatively old topic predating the arrival of consumer SSD. Somehow I resolved there is a new reason to revisit it. That reason is not the existence of paid RAM caching programs or corporate level hardware that dyes everything a similar shade of dull. Or exploring the difficulties faced bodging together firmware attempting to make Enterprise hardware suitable to purpose inside a battleground OS lacking any of the controls or resources it depends upon.

 

[Visible Noise]

RAM caching was the solution to hard drive latencies being abysmal; SSDs are a different solution that doesn't require you to pay for and install an extra piece of software. Sure an SSD will never be as fast as RAM but that's not the point; the point is that SSDs are good enough to make RAM caching unnecessary for 99.99% of users.

Maybe I'll give PrimoCache a try though, given how much unused RAM I've got knocking around in this system.

Let me know what you think. Even with Gen 4 NVME drives I find that it cuts level load times in half.

 

[Hakker]

I keep it relatively simple I guess.
Samsung 980 Pro is my Windows/programs SSD
Lexar NM790 is my games SSD (steam, GoG, Launchbox, EA etc etc)
Samsung 870 QVO is my download and general storage
and lastly my NAS that has anything for long time storage.