Desktop computer question

[ViperPete]

I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this but if anyone has knowledge about the subject, please chime in!
Some months ago I bought a new Alienware computer. Mainly for gaming. I have always wanted a fast computer and I thought I spec'd it out to be really fast. Well its pretty fast but i want more speed. Mainly I want it to load the windows and games faster. Here are the specs:
Aurora R7 Base
338-BNMW Intel(R) Core i7 8700 (6-Core/12-Thread, 12MB Cache, up to 4.6GHz with Intel
Turbo Boost Technology)
Windows 10 Home 64bit
460W APFC PSU Air Cooled Chassis
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 with 8GB GDDR5
16GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2666MHz (2X8GB)
2TB 7200RPM 6Gb/s
Tray load DVD Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD)
Dell Wireless Card (802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1)

What I am looking for is a 1 TB SSD hard drive. I want to move everything over and have everything load faster. Is this a reasonable thing?

[ForTehNguyen]

yes SSD is one of the biggest upgrades you can do for a machine nowadays. I run SSD in everything, they have gotten a lot cheaper.

[ViperPete]

The is a zillion of them though. I don't know which one to choose!

[ForTehNguyen]

honestly i run a 500GB SSD main drive and a 3TB regular harddrive. I have the OS and games on the 500 and anything else on the 3TB. That way if the SSD fails for whatever reason my data is seperate and I only lose the OS and game installs. No biggie

[SlateEd]

honestly i run a 500GB SSD main drive and a 3TB regular harddrive. I have the OS and games on the 500 and anything else on the 3TB. That way if the SSD fails for whatever reason my data is seperate and I only lose the OS and game installs. No biggie

+1 for using both types. And you will definitely notice a load-time improvement with an SSD holding the OS and your games / programs.

I use an SSD for anything that needs to load quickly and keep it 'small' like 500GB or 1TB. Then I have a NAS for music, photo, video backups, documents, all the dumping ground stuff that couldn't be replaced... desktop and laptops can all share that one.

In my Mac I used other world computing for the SSD brand, in the PC I put a Samsung. I haven't had any issues with either one, but it's always a good idea to have backups if you have creative / irreplaceable files.

[MinGrey02Stg2]

Another +1 to using SSDs for the main boot drive and a traditional drive for storage. I believe the fastest drives are the ones you put into PCI slots. Check out the Samsung 970 EVO 1TB and make sure your motherboard supports it. They have 3,500MB/s read speeds. Traditional drives can only read at a small fraction of that.

[SmoknTires]

All good advice that folks are providing.

SSD shouldn't be a question, answer is yes - especially for the boot drive. Just 2 years ago that was your only option, and 128 and 256 drives were the largest you could get. But now they're getting much cheaper and have grown a lot in size. If you don't have massive demands for data, you could even go with a larger SSD for everything, or (what other and I also suggest) use a secondary and do an SSD on that also... Now you can get SSD's easily in 1TB or more and it's fairly cost effective. All depends on the amount of storage you need and if an SSD can suffice for the data drive.

I've been using SSD's since they day they came out, hilarious when I think of the early sizes, I could barely get the OS on there. They were also not as stable, had lots of them crash. Plenty has changed and now they're more reliable than cylindrical drives (and consume a lot less power and create much less heat).

[cubeman]

It's an alienware so depending on the case you may be limited to swapping MB's (Or maybe your MB has a slot). Get a 256 or 512gb PCIE NVMe and throw your OS and applications that you need to go fast on there. Super fast writes

I personally have a 256gb NVMe with my OS and some other applications and a 2TB Black WD Drive for games. My next build I'll probably do a 512gb NVMe so I can throw a few games on the NVMe to decrease load times.

[mattssg]

I build computers..

Pete, I always recommend assembling your own (to save $$$ and gain performance.) but that rig you have is a beast. The 1070 will play any game at 60fps, that i7 will serve you well for a while it's a new 6 core so everything looks fine.

The SSD's are a must. I recommend buying 2 500gig 850 evo's and running them in raid (as one unit) very easy to setup and get going. Your computer will boot 100x faster, battlefield (all of them) and other games will have your maps loaded instantly instead of 2-3 minutes. If you need any assistance shoot me a PM I am always happy to help with PC's.