Looking into a second hard drive

[Dravenspur]

Hey guys,

I'm having trouble coming up with an upgrade idea. A couple questions. One, does anyone know a difference between the Samsung 850 and 860 EVO SSD? I've looked at a reveiw of both on Rock, Paper, Shotgun (probably should look at more than one site, but that's all I've done for now) and from what I can see the difference between both models is minimal (with the 860 being better...as far as read and write speeds go). I'm looking at upgrading from the 500 GB size I have now (850 EVO) to 2 TB. Maybe keep the 500 for the OS and the 2 TB for games (my rig is 90% for games). Right now, the 860 EVO is cheaper on NewEgg than the 850 at 2 TB (neither are on sale right now, the 860 is just cheaper...$599.99 vs. $728.99). Is this pretty much a wash? Because the 860 is cheaper, I should go with that, and if the 850 was cheaper, I go with that one instead? Has anyone used both models and have any insight into which they liked better?

Lastly, I looked into upgrading to an NVMe stick, but I read that certain motherboards need a BIOS update for the NVMe stick to work. I could be wrong about this. Has anyone read about this or had experience with it? I suppose I should update my BIOS anyway, but I haven't seen the need to as of yet (unless I need to for the NVMe drive). My mobo is the ASUS Maximus VIII Gene, in case anyone wanted to know. Any advice I can get is much appreciated.

 

[Alaric]

I keep my OS and games on a 500 GB 850 EVO and everything else on a 4 TB WD HDD. My downloads, pictures, video and documents. Along with recorded TV. That way if I have to reinstall the OS I won't have to worry about saving all that stuff. I'm thinking about reinstalling my games to a 300 GB VelociRaptor, but I'll end up with a bunch of wasted space on the drive. Maybe 4 partitions and just go through them as they die? LOL

 

[trents]

"Hard drive" is the incorrect term for the storage you are asking about. Hard drives are electro-mechanical spinners.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

There is always someone who never answers a question and has to point out an error instead isnt there Trents.

As for yoru question a 850 and 860 are identical its just the 860 is newer and cheaper to make. What i plan to do is buy a 1TB 860 Evo ssd, and get a 2TB Firecuda SSHD, this way i have enough storage for the games i do play, and for games i dont play i can put on the firecuda which is still faster then a normal HDD, and my 1TB WD black HDD ill use for storing pictures and backups and so forth.

 

[EarthDog]

You wont notice the difference between the drives performamce wise, but they are not identical. Go with the cheaper one.

Update you bios. Not sure youd need it, but might as well. I dont see a reason to leave it not updated as improvements are made to features, suppprt and stability.

There is always someone who never answers a question and has to point out an error instead isnt there Trents.

How was this useful? He may not have answered the question but did add at least a bit of value to the post....

Edit: oh good, you added help for the op after that little treat.

 

[Kenrou]

I'm thinking about reinstalling my games to a 300 GB VelociRaptor, but I'll end up with a bunch of wasted space on the drive.

Mine from the 8370 setup - WD5000HHTZ (10000rpm 64mb cache) and WD10EZEX (7200rpm 64mb cache), used as Velociraptor for games and WDC Blue for backups - you can see some difference in benchmarks and defrag but next to zero in gaming or loading times. Kinda glad the Velociraptor was a gift

What i plan to do is buy a 1TB 860 Evo ssd, and get a 2TB Firecuda SSHD, this way i have enough storage for the games i do play, and for games i dont play i can put on the firecuda which is still faster then a normal HDD

From the (granted only) review i read about the Firecuda this thing was meant to be used as a boot device and the 8gb of fast memory is too small for general gaming. Benchmarks show that for everything else it's just as slow as a regular HDD ?

https://www.eteknix.com/seagate-firecuda-2tb-2-5-sshd-review/10/

 

[trents]

There is always someone who never answers a question and has to point out an error instead isnt there Trents.

As for yoru question a 850 and 860 are identical its just the 860 is newer and cheaper to make. What i plan to do is buy a 1TB 860 Evo ssd, and get a 2TB Firecuda SSHD, this way i have enough storage for the games i do play, and for games i dont play i can put on the firecuda which is still faster then a normal HDD, and my 1TB WD black HDD ill use for storing pictures and backups and so forth.

Personally, I appreciate it when people correct me so I don't keep making the same mistake. I knew there would be plenty of others to answer his main question but maybe no one who would take the trouble to correct OP's terminology error. I think education is one very important function of a community such as this. Yeah, but I here you. I didn't intend to come across in a critical way.