its frustratingly annoying that I had to move to an ssd just to get the same load times ever since the file system change. š¤¬
If you buy a SATA SSD for a desktop it is fairly easy. I know it sounds scary, but the computer I built 10 years ago had an SSD so unless your board is 20 years old you are likely fine. SSD's are basically what "dongles" are. You can just go on YouTube and look for instructions - it really is that easy.
I moved WoW folder from HDD to SSD and It loaded faster to Legion Dalaran than before!Some areas i had problems too, also loading asap.SSD is worth it.
In other news, fire is hot, water is wet.
I find addons to be the biggest hog of loading times. I have a samsung 512 ssd, and newer pc and my first login for the day into boralus usually is 10-15 seconds maybe, logging between alts is 3-5 seconds, maybe 10 sometimes. However, if i disable all addons...everything is near instant. like the bar moves so fast its gone in 3-4 seconds, period. I have quite a few addons, but i also disable anything i dont acitvely need, some addons i use for specific purposes, but addons can definetly add to your loading times. Usually if even on ssd i am taking 20-30 seconds to load anything i start to look at addons and drop stuff, then i get back down to that 10-15 max range and its good. Back in the day, heavy addon use on a HDD took MINUTES to load. literally. I remember it being so slow in vanilla that the famous "lag pit" in IF people would fall into all the time, becuse they would be running along, and computer would lag/not load and next thing you know, you fell off the side. But i also was running 128 or 256 sdram at the time, i clearly remember putting a 512 stick in and...1000x better, load times and the game played like a brand new game (still hd...this was 2004/2005 mind you)So i kinda also second other people saying that upgrading other parts of your pc besides HD is sometimes a good idea. If you have 8 gigs of ram (or less) then definetly want 16..as windows eats up about 5-6 by itself. going from 8 to 16 is very noticeable. big upgrade. going to 32 not so much, as 16 is rarely maxed, but some people like to have that buffer.
No sense not using your HDD as well they still make great mass storage for Media files.
128GB SSD is cheaper than shadowlands, go buy it and put windows and WoW on it
I did this - I have an older (4 Yrs) laptop w 3.0 USB ports. It's been a learning experiance. Make sure the external SSD you buy has a 3.0 USB. My first attempt was a brand new released Samsung T7. It has 3.2 USB. And while they are backwards compatible, my laptop crashed a ton over and over bc of what I found by trial and error was most likely as a result of 3.2 into a 3.0 and not being able to handle to faster info transfer speeds. Once I bought an older SSD w a 3.0 USB connection - everything has gone exceptionally smoother. Good luck! Intimidating for a not super tech savy person, but worth it in gameplay/loading times!
I remember when it took me only 10 seconds to load Legion Dalaran on my HDD, then 7.1 dropped...
Bought an SSD for games and WoW was the first game I tested. And it really makes a difference. Load times are ~10x faster and no not-yet-loaded models/textures are shown.
luckily WoW is really one of the only games i play, so any decent SSD has the capability to hold it and all the other stuff I need.I'd never go back to HDD.