Need help deciding what SSD to buy for Gaming, Workstation, and Server Ryzen 7 1700

Hardware HDD's & SSD's
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Ok, I have decided to purchase the Ryzen 7 1700 for my CPU and the Asrock X370 Fatal1ty Professional Gaming motherboard, so I right now I am trying to decide what two SSD’s should I purchase for this build. Keep in mind I have a max budget of $5,000 USD dollars to spend over a whole year, so remember M.2 SSD’s while quite a bit faster for the size I need would cause my budget to go way over the max amount I can spend within a year.

I have posted a link of my build for anyone willing to help me decided what SSDs I should purchase to get the biggest bang for my buck. I really like Samsung SSD but I am willing to consider other manufacturers.

The total cost for the build is a little over my max budget so It will need some tweaking, so I hope by deciding on different items that I don’t know anything about I can lower my budget to the max outlay I can afford, but I am going to do that on an item by item bases, So In this special post I am only asking for help picking SSD’s. If you have a suggestion for anything else, please post it my special build post, which I will link to here.
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/replacing-desktop-damaged-by-electrical-spike/123215/7.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/aaronkitchen/saved/#view=f79PsY

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I would say - simple…
Buy a small m.2 nvme or simple PCIe SSD for OS and most software, buy larger SATA drive for games and the rest of the software, and then just get HDDs for pure storage.


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Uhhhhhhh what?

Hold on there. We still have a lot to discuss as far as part selection goes.

You say this is a gaming/workstation/server build. Can you please elaborate on what exactly you will be doing?

I am curious why you think you need so much ram and why you want 3 monitors in that sort of a configuration as opposed to something like a wide curved monitor.

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Thanks pycho_666 for the reply, but As I explained before for my use case a small m.2 won’t work because of Windows space hungry on what every medium you uses compare to Linux. Ok, I am not just using this Computer build to run games sure the web or create youtube videos. This machine is also going to be used for Virtualization experiments where I could have as many as 4 to 8 different virtualized servers or computers running at the same time or network experiments, and I don’t want these virtualized machines to run on hard drives. Also, I plan on running Windows 10 and a Linux distribution on two separate drives. I am not going to run Windows 10 and a Linux distribution on the same disk. I would sell my right arm to be able to afford two 1GB m.2 SSDs, but I have to stick with what I can afford.

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Ok, I am trying to combine three different machines into one platform, I know it would be better to have three different machines, one for gaming and light computing tasks, another for all my workstation tasks, and one more to do my media server tasks. Also, I know Threadripper would be a better fit for my use case because of its increased PCI lanes, but who can afford a Threadripper system when a Ryzen 7 1700 system is a stretch.

As to your question about why I need three monitors, well I do a lot of multi-tasking, and it is just easier when I am trying to do three different things at once, instead of switch between the different tasks on one screen, it’s better each task has its own screen. It is more of a want than a need, but I want it very badly.

To explain the huge amount of ram, I will be using this build to do a lot of virtualization experiments and testing new ideas in networking. where I could be in a situation where I am virtualizing a new type of switch or rooter. Maybe I am virtualizing anywhere between four to eight server or computers at the same time while creating youtube videos at the same time.

As to the unasked question, why is one of the monitors are so expensive than the others, well I don’t already have a monitor that is Gsync compatible. I hope this answers all the questions you have. If you have more please fill free to ask them in this post or in the other one I link to above.

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The thing is, SX6000 is faster than every SATA drive, and is priced cheaper than most of them. I mean 256GB drive is cheaper than 128 SX8000, that is crazy fast, but also crazy expensive. So there’s that.
dual 256GM drives will set you back some 170$…
You will not really save much (if anything) if you go pure SATA III or M.2 SATA III…

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Most games doesnt “really” care if you’re using SSD tech or not, i mean if you invest in some rediculessly expensive ssd fast’n furious SSD you may feel a small difference, basically i felt 0% difference from the low priced samsung 7XX what ever, and replacing it with a M.2 samsung 960 EVO as boot drive.
Id just go with the tried and trued SSD boot, and mechanical storage solution.
maybe there is a few %(and it is a few %) to get by either going full SDD, or something redicules like WD black or something like it, but price to performance id say.
Slap a boot SSD, and a 2TB lower priced mechanical harddrive, maybe 2 x 1tb in raid which ever tickles your fancy.
You will be able to notice a difference, but it is no where near what it is hyped up to be, i mean do you really care if the load screen takes 5 seconds or 10 seconds?. I mean really honestly care. but those are the numbers were talking about.
All in all it really is a numbers game, pay 4 times the price for storage for your games, or live with the “lowered” readtimes, lowered being a relative term in this case.

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For storage, bang/buck absolutely peaks in the low-end SSD area. I’m not so lucky as to own an nvme drive (or a mobo that supports them, even), but my $50 256 GB SATA SSD works (this is the subjective part) totally fine for me. My OS boots in a few seconds, directory listings are instant. Transferring large files is not, but it’s damn well fast enough. Also, most of the big files I might be transferring (games, movies, music, etc.) are on my HDD anyway. (This may or may not apply to you, depending on what you do with your system etc.)

If I had to rebuild my desktop from scratch, I would get two 256 GB SSDs (one for windows, one for linux) and a 2 TB HDD for storage. I install programs to the install medium (SSD), except games, which go on the spinning rust. HDD storage space will vary wildly depending on how much stuff you have, but I can’t imagine filling up a terabyte on my OS disk. Maybe 512 GB on a good (bad?) day.

Just my two cents, everyone sets up their storage differently it seems. What I’m trying to say is that you can probably get the slowest modern SSD out there and still be fine, so it’s a good place to cut costs.

On the topic of cutting costs…not building a PC in 2018 if you can avoid it. Or 2017. Or probably 2019. If only you had the choice :cry:

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I don’t think it would be good to have 3 different machines, but it would be a REALLY good idea to have two machines. One for gaming and general work, the other as a headless server for virtualization. This will be a tad more expensive, but we can still keep it way under budget and it would make your life a million times easier.

You could have an coffee lake i5 for gaming and general work, and then you could have a xeon 8 core 2011 server off to the side. See with your build you would have to be using some of your cpu cores to be running your machine. With this setup you could have 1 core be running something like proxmox, but then all other cores can be used to do what ever you want them to. You wouldn’t be hindered in any way.

Side question. Are you in the US? Cause that would definitely put a spin on the budget.

And just to clarify, I don’t have an issue with multi monitors, I just don’t think you are going about it in the right way. Normally 3 monitors are used for surround gaming. For multi tasking your focus shouldn’t be on number of monitors, but rather on useable work space.

I think a higher quality 32-40 inch 4K or even an ultra wide 3440x1440 screen with a second 1440p screen to the side is a much better solution. I have tried using 3 screens for productivity and it is not as fun as you might think. You have to move your head around so much that you end up getting dizzy. Having 1 big productivity focused monitor with a nice auxiliary monitor off to the side is really the key to success here.

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@MrFigs thanks for your input, as I mentioned In my original post (link in this post) my only desktop was destroyed by a lightning strike and excessive overheating caused by me not providing a satisfactory cooling solution. If I still had a working desktop I wouldn’t be building one right now, at least not until there is a hardware fix for Meltdown and Spectre.

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Yes, I live in the United States, so prices are in United States dollars.

Yes, I agree with you @Tjj226_Angel I am making it way more complicated than it needs to be.

I like your idea of having two separate desktops, one for gaming and general work and having another for the rest of my workload. It is my opinion, the risk of buying used equipment is too high (meaning something that doesn’t work or will very soon die a horrible death) (what I mean by used equipment is any computer part that isn’t ram or a network card) it just isn’t worth it. Of course, if someone wants to give me the parts for free I would take them, but how often is that going to happen.

Also, because of the way Intel is handling (what I call the Meltdown and Spectre bug) they have lost all trust with me, and they won’t have a chance earn my trust back until they have a hardware solution for the huge security mess that Meltdown and Spectre are. I know what other forum members are going to say if I am such a security nut why have I not completely switched from the dark side (Microsoft Windows) to the Light side (Linux). Well, that is a good question, and there are three main reasons why I haven’t switched. One, every Linux distribution I have tried isn’t as user-friendly and stable as Windows 10, but I am willing to put up with that fact, that is how un-secure I feel Windows is.

Two, I have lost all trust in Microsoft after they decided to mine our personal information, and the fact they are forcing us to upgrade to Windows 10.

Three, I have a certain workload that requires special software which isn’t open source and there isn’t a Linux alternative available, and of course just about all games require Windows.
I have contacted the software developer of the special software and ask if they have any plans to port a version of their software for Linux and their response was no. The reason they gave me was it’s not a simple port, they would have provided a version of their software for every distribution of Linux they decide to support.

The reason I added three monitors to the proposed build was that I currently only have a cheap 1080P monitor that is on its last legs.

I am seriously considering your advice and what I will probably do is purchases either a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 3 for gaming and general workloads and purchase a Threadripper for the rest of my workloads.

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Well for starters I can tell you that AMD was also hit by the meltdown thing. The reason why intel is handling it so awkwardly is because they really haven’t had a major architectural change in forever. Yeah, they have gone from 32nn down to 10nm this coming year (supposedly), but the overall layout of the processor hasn’t changed.

So specter can attack intel at a much lower level and this is why its hard for intel to address the issue without a physical hardware change to their processors which is supposedly coming this year.

AMD on the other hand has a vastly different hardware setup (mostly by happen stance and NOT by design). Specter did affect AMD, however it affected them at the firmware level. So they were able to patch it and move on. If they were in the same boat as intel, they would be doing the same stupid shit too.

And while AMD hasn’t been publicly hit with any major issues. How do you feel about their release of ryzen? It was buggy beyond all belief and they are still having issues. They wanted to push a product that really wasn’t ready on an unsuspecting audience. And in all reality, how long will it be before AMD has a similar situation to intel on their hands, and how do you think they will respond?

Trust me, there are no heros in the tech world. They are ALL shitty cooperation who want to take advantage of the consumer. Go with what ever is the best tech for you particular situation and tune out the politics. You will get more work done this way.

Also, if you are doing networking and VM type stuff, I am sorry to say that you better start liking linux and quick.

You can use windows for gaming and general work flow, but you are shooting yourself right between the eyes if you are tying to have windows host your VMs.

And no, linux is FARRRRRRR more stable than windows. If you feel otherwise then something has gone wrong. Obviously the level1, and linux community are ready and willing to help if you wanna give linux another shot. We could also probably help you figure out your workload issue.

If you are still set on ryzen, what are your thoughts about at least waiting for ryzen+ to come out?

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The news article I came across about AMD’s vulnerability to Meltdown and Spectre said the researchers who discovered the vulnerabilities couldn’t verify if AMD was vulnerable to Meltdown or to what degree, because of the complexability of the attack they were using. My own personal opinion is Ryzen and Threadripper are vulnerable to Meltdown, but to a lesser degree than Intel.

If you think AMD or Intel are going to have a hardware fix for both Meltdown and Spectre by the end of the year you are underestimating the severity of the security risk. Well, I suppose AMD and Intel could prove me wrong, but if they were to, the platform would be so buggy or full of holes it would make the problem with Zen and Intel’s X99 platform seem not so bad. You have to admit when X99 first launched it pretty much had the same teething problems as Zen does right now.

Well, my response to your question is this when you introduce a totally new platform which Zen is there is bound to be teething issues for the first year. Did AMD release the Zen platform to early, I would have to agree they did, but if they had waited they wouldn’t be around today? The reason AMD didn’t have to close their doors and there is still some competition against Intell is because of the huge success of the Ryzen chip. If Ryzen wasn’t such a success AMD would now be in chapter 13. I think because they aren’t the 800-pound gorilla in the room if any serious problems were to be discovered about the Zen platform they would try hard to provide what their customers want’s and as quickly as they can because their survival depends on it. In another word, I think AMD is going to come up with a hardware fix for Meltdown and Spectre before Intel because they have proven to be more adaptive and Innovative than Intel.

I guess I am being misunderstood again, I didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use a Linux distribution to run my two different desktops. I was just pointing out the fact when it comes to games and certain workloads, which I didn’t mention because of a certain contract I have signed. Windows is the only choice for those reasons for those type of workloads. It has been my experience Linux is more stable than Windows once you get it installed and setup properly, but that can be a real trick or pain with newer hardware.
Right now I am trying to get Kubuntu installed on my personal Laptop and the reason I think I am having so much trouble is because my laptop top won’t or doesn’t have an EFI/Bios mode it only has UEFI/ Bios mode for boot up.

I thought it was understood I was waiting until Ryzen+ came out.

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Yeah there were several articles. Some said it was just intel. Some said they didn’t know. Some said it was anything x86 based and then they also found out that arm could be affected. I seem to remember reading that AMD was affected, but it was at a firmware level and they patched it.

As for the hardware fix, yeah IDK. I used the word supposedly for a reason. It wouldn’t be beyond them to fix this type of an issue, nor would it be beyond them to fumble it. I only told you what the current news is, but you are right. Its anyone’s guess as to whether or not they will follow through.

And no, X99 did not have the same teething problems. The ram issue might be similar, but the ram did not affect CPU performance the same way that ryzen did. But the motherboard support was VASTLY better than it was with ryzen. Plus ryzen is still having issues with instability. Whether or not the stability issues are a ryzen issue or people still dealing with shitty motherboards is still up for debate. But yeah. People aren’t having the greatest time with ryzen. I know I certainly didn’t.

Ultimately the reason the ryzen launch was so shitty is because they kept the project under wraps for so long that they didn’t give their board partners enough time to fully develop stable motherboards. And sadly the consumer ended up paying the price.

And yeah, I misunderstood you about linux. My bad. It did sound like you were not interested in using linux at all.

And it wasn’t super clear if you were going to wait for ryzen plus. You did mention it, but as you continued on it looked like you were going to start building a bit ahead of schedule, so I wasn’t too sure.

And no, linux is pretty easy to get working with newer hardware, you just need a distro with a fairly up to date kernel.

What laptop do you have? Almost all linux distros these days are actually compatible with UEFI bioses, so you shouldn’t be having issues there.

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If I may make a small suggestion, Stepping those Ironwolf and Barracuda Pro 10tb down to something in the 8tb range will help reduce the overall cost of the build. The premium on 10 and 12tb drives right now is not worth the extra 2 or 4 tb respectively. You could probably afford 3 x 8tb drives for the total cost of 2 x 10tb. Good luck with your build.

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Thanks Whizdumb for your suggestion, the reason I picked 10TB over 8TB is I already have a movie and TV collection that is already over 5TB stored in the cloud and it keeps growing at about 20GB a month and I didn’t want to have to buy new drives for a while. But as you remind me I can always buy more drives.

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Well, I guess I lucked out and I have the one laptop that is a pain to get any Linux distribution on. It’s the Asus Republic of Gamers G75vw and I think the real problem is the stupid UEFI software developer Asus pick for this particular model and as always with 6 years old laptop Asus wouldn’t offer any support. Because of the stupid decision, Asus has made in regards to this laptop, I won’t ever buy another laptop or motherboard from them ever again.

To be fair to Asus, I don’t expect them to provide support for a 6 years old laptop, but why couldn’t they have picked a better UEFI software developer, or at least pick one that would support Linux. Someone from Level 1techs forum suggested that the problem could be the fact that support for Nvidia on Linux is piss poor and suggested a workaround, but so far I haven’t been able to implement it because while I can get Kubuntu to boot up I lose all control of my laptop before I can implement it. Next thing I am going to try is install Kubuntu 16.o4.3 which is the lastest long term supported version, and see if that is any better. If you have any other ideas, please let me know.

Edit I forgot to mention I think the processor in this laptop belongs to the Intel Ivory Bridge Platform. I thought I would add that fact incase it helped.

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Well no one other than maybe dell would be willing to help support their products with linux. That is not an asus thing. Hell, companies like lenovo are so in bed with MS, that they make their laptops in such a way where it is difficult (near impossible) to install linux.

After reading through your other post, I can promise you it is NOT your UEFI or anything on Asus’s end.

Normally when you have an issue with UEFI, you simply wouldn’t be able to detect your pen drive. It would essentially prevent you from installing linux at all.

The fact that you got basic ubuntu and mint to install makes me think that you have some other issue going on. From the sound of it, I would have to agree that a GPU driver issue is more than likely the cause.

Rather than trying to install kubuntu again, I would like you to consider installing fedora. It has a much more up to date kernel, and I think it would definitely help you in this situation.

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I tend to agree with @Tjj226_Angel Asus is probably not the culprit here. Rather the fact that AMD graphics have not really been a player in recent times with discreet mobile GPUs and Mobile Nvidia is much more likely the cause. This is why I’ve been waiting to upgrade my laptop to an all AMD solution. While some new ryzen laptops are out, I’m waiting for the platform to mature a little before I jump on them.

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While I agree with @Whizdumb and @Tjj226_Angel that the trouble I am having installing Kubuntu on my laptop if it is a driver issue it is because I have a Nvidia 670M GPU installed on this laptop, but I am not so quick to forgive ASUS for their poor choice of UEFI software developer.

As to the suggestion of replacing Kubuntu with Fedora because it has a newer Linux Kernel, I agree with @Whizdumb and @Tjj226_Angel that if I had a newer Linux kernel built into the bootable live USB stick, I wouldn’t be having all these problems setting up Kubuntu, which is the reason I started the post on this forum called How to created a custom bootable Linux USB stick. I found someone at work that can compile the latest Linux version into the latest Kubuntu version and make me a custom bootable USB stick, So in a few days, I should be able to get Kubuntu working stable on my laptop.

While I like @Tjj226_Angel idea of having two separate computers, one for gaming, general workloads, and one for my special workloads, I have decided against that idea because I would need to spend $2,000 dollars over my budget if I were to do it that way, So my two choices are either a Ryzen 1700 build or a Theadripper 1900x build. The Theadripper is more in line with my workloads and it hits my budget pretty close to my maximum budget, but the Ryzen is about $600 dollars cheaper. What do you girls and guy’s think?
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/aaronkitchen/saved/#view=rwg4CJ
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/aaronkitchen/saved/f79PsY