World of Warcraft: Shadowlands minimum system requirements call for an SSD

The minimum system requirements for the upcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion have been revealed, and they're fairly unremarkable but for one point: You'll need 100GB of storage space, which is an awful lot (but still nowhere near the maniacal 200GB+ required by Modern Warfare), but more importantly, Blizzard wants that storage space on an SSD.

SSDs—that's solid-state drives—are fantastic because they're blisteringly fast compared to conventional hard drives. But that performance comes at a price, literally: As we noted in our recent HDD vs SSD breakdown, solid-state drives can cost more than four times as much as a hard drive of comparable capacity.

They're a lot cheaper than they used to be, but the difference in price is still enough that some PC gamers (including myself) end up running with two drives, a smaller SSD to install and run Windows and the games of the moment from, and then a whopping-big HDD for stuff like photos, storage, and whatever else you have lying around that won't drive you bonkers if it takes awhile to load. That's why it's a little unusual to see one included with the minimum system requirements, as is the case here:

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-3450 or AMD FX 8300
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760, AMD Radeon RX 560, or Intel UHD 630 (45W) (DirectX 11 compatible GPU with 2GB VRAM)
• RAM: 4GB (8GB if using integrated graphics)
• Storage: SSD, 100GB available space
• Input: Keyboard and mouse required, other input devices are not supported

Recommended:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 65 (DirectX 12 compatible GPU with 8GB VRAM)
• RAM: 8GB
• Storage: SSD, 100GB available space
• Input: Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel

Unlike components such as RAM or video card, which can straight-up prevent a game from running if they're not up to snuff, the general consensus in threads like this on Reddit is that Shadowlands will run from a hard drive. It'll suck more—loading times will be much longer and you'll see more pronounced texture pop-in—but if you really want to play Shadowlands, and you really don't want to buy an SSD, you should be able to get away with it.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands comes out on October 27, which gives you just under two months to talk yourself into springing for an SSD. (And trust me, you should.) If you're in the mood to go shopping, be sure to hit up our guides to the best SSDs for gaming, the best cheap SSDs, and for higher performance options, the best NVMe SSDs that you can throw your money at right now.

Thanks, Wowhead.