Each of you have provided me with some great information. What SSD manufacturer have you found to be the best?Currently looking at Crucial.

That is correct for regular 120GB SSDs, they usually have 50-70 TBW. The 480-512 GB drives are somewhere between 160 and 300 TBW.

You've probably seen 1200 TBW on the 1 TB PRO series. Samsung's 1 TB EVO series have 600 TBW.

(*subjective views warning*) If you have the budget then go for Samsung, their EVO series is great. Otherwise, if you're looking for a somewhat cheaper but still decent alternative, I'd suggest SanDisk.

P.S.: Just checked out Crucial SSDs on the net. If you were considering getting a Crucial MX500, it seems it's held in high regard, so there's nothing wrong with going for that either.

I did. Tried my first SSD a few years back, as OS/ system drive. About a year after I built the system the SSD suddenly died and the PC wouldn't boot anymore. For the record, I used many regular HDDs throughout the years, and not a single one ever broke. Went back to HDD for my OS drive, and plan to stick with that for the foreseeable future. The thing with HDDs is, even if they are about to die, at least it is generally a gradual process, so you still get a chance to save any important data and prepare to replace it.

I'm currently using an SSD for some of my game installations, and so far it's been running for about two years. I'll probably get another bigger one for my next PC. Depending on how long that one lasts, maybe one day I'll trust them enough to use them for my OS installation again.

I´m pretty much in the same boat as you, though IMO you´re doing it REALLY wrong.
The DOCUMENTS, other media&stuff should be on the HDD, system and the currently favorite game on the SSD.
Usually with about 15-20GB free space to help the SSD´s wear leveling.

I long ago learned to use the NTFS junction system.
This allows you to install a game on the HDD, but then you can move it back to SSD for the time you actually use it.
It´s tedious but I got used to it.
The performance gain of running a game from a SSD is simply too dramatic to not do it.

Going to upgrade my system with a NVMe card and a 500GB m2 SSD soon, the prices have gone down very nicely.

At my side, i have both (SSD & HDD)
1°) SSD Crucial MX 200 mainly reserved for OS (Windows 10 Pro). Boot time of the OS is significantly reduced.
2°) HDD Western Digital WDBlack 2 To for steam/gog games and app.

Next time, i may invest in a second (bigger) SSD to replace my HDD and use my HDD as backup drive instead.

You sound like an early adopter, the hardware back then was a bit finicky.
But even though I let them shake it out for a year before HAPPILY jumping on the SSD wagon, it drove me into creating a permanent RAMDisk solution for constantly used data (Windows TEMP directory, Firefox profile, Virusscanner).
My trusty old Cruicial M4 128Gb is still doing fine.

Not that early, really. SSDs had already been around for a few years, and it was a quality brand. ( Samsung, I think. )

Anyhow, going to keep using them for game installations only, and if there are no further complications, I might try using them as OS drives again. At least if a game drive fails, the rest of the computer will still work fine, and you just need to reinstall the games. ( Even the save files are usually on a different drive. )

The most cost effective mainstream quality brand options are currently Crucial MX500 vs Samsung 860 EVO. Both excellent choices with 5 year warranty's.

If you get the fastest car in the world and then use a horse to pull it, you will not see much of an increase in speed. =)

That is to say if your system is still regularly accessing the HDD for data, you are only going to move at that HDD's speed. I am running the same SSD as you (actually it's 1 Tb, and bit faster, but mostly the same) and the difference with something like a 10,000 RPM Western Digital HDD (my last ever HDD — I looked it up) is beyond any description.

+1

The price is going down all the time so now you can buy 1TB of either MX500 or 860 EVO for ~$160. For Black Friday (around one month from now) the price should go even lower.

My sole purpose to replying to the original poster of this thread is to share my experience with them in hopes that it helps them to make a decision towards solving their own problem at hand. I'm not here to prove anything to anyone, nor to replace Google or act as an authority on the topic.

If someone wants to know what other peoples experiences are then people are likely to share them. On the other hand if someone makes demands on someone, what incentive is there to meet those demands? I have no incentive to get into an argument with you nor to prove my experiences are valid to you, and I have nothing to lose by avoiding participating in such interaction.

Everyone can do their own research and draw their own conclusions, and it would not surprise me at all if people do different research and find different results in both directions. Needless to say, if two people have different experiences there is no value to be had by arguing one way or the other to prove that one is right or wrong, it's just a waste of time that I personally would rather not bother doing since there is no incentive.

So if you think "I'm wrong", I'm ok with you thinking that, I wont lose any face nor any sleep over what you think. I'll fight for your right to have your own opinion even if it differs from mine or my own experiences. If nothing else, it caused you to research it yourself and draw your own conclusions so that's a win regardless of whether or not we or anyone else agrees about anything.

SSD for OS
HDD for games

personally games are just getting bigger and bigger, i have a few games that are just 50GB itself with a SDD it would fill that up pretty fast 8x50GB would be 400GB already used which also another thing you do not want to go over 90% on a SSD or HDD, i don't have the correct % though where you do want to not go over because it will both bog down both types of drives

ill wait till 1TB SSD are around $60-$80 before buying one since i can get a 2TB hard drive for about $100 depending on sale or not. for me i would rather have more room then speed

SSDs are starting to become viable for mass storage, but HDDs still win on the capacity front by a mile. Toss in stuff like helium and whatnot, the difference in size gets even bigger. The next rig I make will have at least one SSD, but odds are that most of it would comprise of spinners.

My big holdup concerning modern storage is that there is now various connection schemes (NVME, PCIE, SATA-EX, ect) that makes things confusing. I am hoping my rig can hold out until the AM5 platform is out, so that things can become more standardized and to have enough ports for all of the storage I want to install. (10+ terabytes, preferably more.)

If I understand correctly, the cost per gig for data currently goes:

$0.06 to $0.13 per gig, for SSD.
$0.04 to $0.06 per gig, for HDD.

Not quite where I would like pricing to be, but it is getting there.

Oh, I wish these sizes were available in my country. My local computer shop only started stocking 420GB SSDs a couple months ago. I want to replace my current hybrid setup with a full SSD build, but not until there's at least 750GB available.

Of course, by the time that is available here, I will likely be in the market for a new computer anyways.