SSD or Two Mechanicals?

[slovdog]

Hello, first timer here on the forum. I am purchasing a gaming laptop for Christmas and had a question about mechanical/SSD drives. I am customizing the laptop so I have a few options. The current two options are as follows:

Primary Mechanical: 1000GB 7200rpm 2.5-inch 9.5mm 32MB SATA III 6Gb/s

Secondary Mechanical: 1000GB 5400rpm 2.5-inch 9.5mm 8MB SATA II 3Gb/s

or just for for one SSD card such as:
240GB Crucial M500 Solid State Drive SATA III 6Gb/s

Basically, is one SSD more efficient for gaming than two mechanical?

Clarify: I can't afford to do SSD+Mechanical. One mechanical is free+extra for the second. Or I can spend that extra money updating the primary to an SSD.

 

[das_stig]

SSD for O/S and anything speed critical + HDD for mass storage, pagefile, temp folders, Windows Update folders, steam library etc etc.

 

[Pr3di]

The ideal setup is one SSD and one mechanical HDD.
The SSD is good for installing the OS and other applications, and the HDD for storing files, music, movies and the like.

Depending on the laptop, you can remove the DVD bay, and replace it with a caddy that supports another drive, meaning you can have two drives (SSD+HDD or HDD + HDD).

Since the laptop can be customized, and has an option to add two drives, you should in theory be able to select one SSD and one HDD.

 

[hang-the-9]

If you don't plan on having more than 3-4 games at a time on the laptop and will also not keep many movie files on there, I would go with the 240 SSD.

I just put together a new desktop with the same 240 gig space in an SSD and have about 100 gig free after installing several games. If you think you will want to have a bunch of games on there, I'd go with the 1tb 7200, although the best by far would be the SSD plus the 7200 rpm drive. Even if you have to drop down to a smaller drive to save a bit.