fallout4 Does an HDD have anything to do with crashes?

[Th3NukaLurk]

Maybe it is a somewhat silly question for some but I wonder if an HDD is responsible for crashes in a game with more than 400 mods in a perfectly ordered list since for me it is an important point to choose whether to buy an NVME or not.

(Google translator)

[AaronOfMpls]

Probably not directly, I'd think.  It'd just take longer for things to load off of it, compared to an SSD (either SATA or NVME).

[Th3NukaLurk]

56 minutes ago, AaronOfMpls said:

Probably not directly, I'd think.  It'd just take longer for things to load off of it, compared to an SSD (either SATA or NVME).

I guess I have some corrupt files since a few days ago my game has crashed many times more than usual, I'm reinstalling the game (Fallout 4) in case that's the reason.
P.S. I always make sure that my mods are compatible with each other and I also order them correctly

[7531Leonidas]

A badly fragmented HDD could increase the rate of read errors, don't you think?  I got used to setting a fixed size (min=max) for the Windows swap file, to help in alleviating fragmentation caused by a dynamic swap file.

If you choose to do this after Windows has been installed for awhile, here is what I did:

Set swapfile minimum and maximum to the smallest single value Windows will allow.

Reboot, defragment HDD until it is fragment-free (or as close as you can get it after multiple passes).

Set swapfile min and max to a reasonable single value for your system specs (i.e. 3 GB, 15 GB, etc.).

Reboot.  Your swapfile should not be thrashing (and maybe trashing) your HDD any longer.

Edited July 25 by 7531Leonidas
Include swapfile change routine

[InDarkestNight]

I initially ran LE on an hdd. I later moved on to an sshd. I now run on an ssd. None of them made any difference in terms of stability. In fact, moving from the sshd to a full ssd made no difference in the frequency of pattern of crashes. The sshd was essentially an hdd btw. It seemed to only use an ssd for caching. It had the normal discs on in, and the ssd part looked like a singular rom chip or something. Honestly, I haven't noticed any differences with this ssd at all. I get better performance yes, but that's mainly due to me running linux rather than windows. Load times aren't any different at all for some reason. My game just doesn't suffer as much from script lag, despite still using the same processor.

[RomanR]

7 hours ago, 7531Leonidas said:

A badly fragmented HDD could increase the rate of read errors, don't you think?

Not directly, but system can perceive it as read error if a read request takes too much time to trigger a time out . Badly fragmenation (like extensive swapping) means for HD a much more work, because its heads must move all over a place to load a file, straining both mechanical and electronic parts. This means longer access time, longer time to load a file and other effects (higher disk temperature and in general shorten life of your HD). In extreme case a HD can develop uncoverable bad sectors, which means it's time to backup it and buy a new one. 

Today you get a corrupted files mostly from a software side or random events like black-out. Still, once for a year I would recommend to run some surface scanning tool and something like scandisk (without repair) to see possible problems and defragment your mechanical HD, if needed.

For today gaming, a SSD is often a must and newest games has it as a prequisite to work.