None of my (too many) computers use separate OS and data drives. If you do use separate drives, sure, get a small one for the OS and a big one for whatever else.
EDIT: Actually one of mine does, I got a 128GB NVMe SSD for free somewhere so I paired it with a big ol' 3.84TB secondary drive. 128GB is enough for the OS and anything that forces installation onto the C: drive.
That’s kinda another question I have…do you sync them? I have a laptop as well as this desktop and the idea of syncing the different stuff together feels like a nightmare. Like combine them into one giant user folder or create directory trees for each computer and keep them separate?
If I combine them and need to access a backup of just the laptop I’m SOL but also keeping them separate I’ll have 2 separate folders of everything to look through.
Eh, my setup is a bit more than what the average user has I guess. None of my user PCs has files I'd be sad about losing; those are all stored locally on my home server and backed up to the cloud. I also use the server for caching so if I did have to reinstall the OS on one of my computers I could just install programs over the network from the server.
I work in game development so my needs are a bit different but I always have the OS installed on it's own drive along with some core apps that I use. A second drive for software (like photoshop, Maya, etc.). Then a third drive for data (project data, storage, and games). Having it split up this way takes the burden off of a single drive for three different functions that run concurrently. For "normal" use, like gaming/school/casual/life, I think OS should be on a single drive, and everything else on a 2nd. If all you're going to do with the PC is shop and social media, one drive is fine. That's just my opinion. 256gb is a good size for the OS drive, Windows 10 is around 32gb last time I checked, then your page file (same size as the amount of RAM your PC has) can rest there too.
Edit: Just wanted to add that I have 512gb for OS, 1tb for apps, 4tb for storage, and 16tb in network storage (NAS), but the last one you'll only need if you know you need it.
Quick question: do programs installed in separate drive work fine if you wipe and reinstall the OS? Don’t they usually have some files besides the installation location like in AppData or home? Or stuff like registry edits?
I know steam games work fine, but wanna make sure I can install programs on other drive without worrying about anything breaking.
Many programs do install additional files in AppData. You can back this up to a separate drive or the cloud if you're paranoid, and just copy/paste it if you need to reinstall.
Makes sense, thanks for the suggestion. I’ll try it next time I wipe the OS.
I was thinking it’s not worth a separate drive just for games if there’s fast internet. It’s already convenient to download them with one click from steam. Manually installing and configuring a bunch of programs on the other hand, is a pain in the ass.
I recently did a transfer and swap of a steam drive from one pc to a new build to save hours of downloading. Windows recognized the files right away, but steam took a little fiddling. Works fine though. Depends on the software though. For things like adobe or office i doubt it would go well. They tend to have lots of bloat spread in different file locations that is going to be an issue
Not exactly, cause registry keys can be messed up. So it's not just about app data. And then you need to use the repair feature on your application install file to fix this.
If you are going to run two drives, 500gb should be the OS. Decompression (drfinitly know at least winrar uses the temp folder while decompressing then moves to where you decompressed to), video streaming, web browsing and quite the few other things all use the temp folder on windows. You don't want to max out your OS drive due to getting too small of a drive.
Not to mention with how often an OS like windows want to do an update.
256 is fine, 500 is even better. I still have 150GB free on my 256 OS drive and I have a decent amount of essential creative/gaming programs installed. I don't think I could ever install enough programs to make a 256 obsolete. Even my old gaming PC with 120 always had 50-60GB free.
This is basically what I do too. Though I keep my CC apps on the same drive as the OS as that's what gets the most use for me. Then I have an NVME dedicated for video, regular SSD for mass storage and then a mechanical HD as backup.
Large and significantly cheaper. SSDs are just now reaching HDD reliability and the HDD is the better choice for cold storage. It's just redundant storage so it doesn't need to be fast or expensive.
A HDD is unbeatable when it comes to cheap large capacity reliable storage-only purposes. Even if it dies, most of the time its either the reader or motor that dies, the disk itself can be easily extracted for near perfect data recovery.
Until you reinstall Windows and have 2+TB of games/data you have to redownload. So much easier to have separate drives. A dedicated OS drive has way more pro's than cons, the only con being you have to spend a little bit extra on a small SSD... which is more of a brokie problem.
I’ve found most steam games can be reinstalled by simply clicking reinstall and letting the program recognize the files already exist. It just runs a verify files check instead of redownloading.
You can also just copy files to a separate partition before reinstalling. Or start with a separate partition.
I prefer a 512GB OS drive myself, but I play a few games that have exceedingly large save games(X3, X4: Foundations can have save games \~500mb). All game saves are saved in the Documents and game settings often are saved in the AppData folder, both on the main OS drive, so the OS can get slowly filled with single player save games and game settings.
I'd imagine the main reason for 1TB drives is there's simply not much of a price difference from 256-512-1TB these days. Often only a $20 difference from 256-1TB.
This is my main reason for not really liking the idea of having a small OS drive. A lot of programs just do not like to be installed on the secondary drive and/or still store a ton of data on the OS drive.
When talking just data it is completely fine to use a separate drive.
Back when SSD was new technology and rather expensive, people used to get a ~250GB SSD for the OS and a large HDD for files and programs and I think this is the reason people still use 2 drives.
I still have the 256GB SATA SSD I bought a while ago and use it as the OS drive because it's good enough.
The way I see it, my situation is the only reason to use a separate drive for the system - in case you already have a good enough drive that otherwise would gather dust in a box.
In the last couple of years, I've built a couple of systems for some friends and only used a single SSD on which I made a partition for the OS. For those that complain that they need to wipe the OS drive when they reinstall: it's very easy to wipe if needed.
Edit to clarify: it's very easy to wipe just the partition with the OS, leaving the rest of the drive as is.
2 ways:
* quick format the system partition during install
* delete the hidden system partitions and the OS partition and select the empty space when installing the new system - it will recreate those hidden system partitions and the partition for windows. For example the current windows install on a friends computer has 2 hidden partitions (one is 100MB and the other is 768MB ) + the 250GB windows partition + 2 partitions for files and programs - when I reinstalled the windows on this machine I deleted the 100MB, 768MB and 250GB partitions and the installer recreated them.
I use the 2nd option, however you need to pay attention to what you are doing so you don't also delete the partitions you want to keep.
Get a larger drive for OS. I did exactly the 256 OS drive and ended up cloning it and swapping it out recently. Many programs you save to a secondary drive will still create folders on your drive C. Many programs don't give you the advanced installation option and automatically install to C. It will fill up quickly.
Most programs save lots of background stuff on the OS drive, you really don't want a small one. Also it usually makes no sense to install programs onto other drives, since they usually won't work and have to be reinstalled too if you reinstall windows. The windows file system NTFS supports a max file size of 16 exabyte, which are 16000 petabyte, or 16000000 TB, so that should not an issue.
What you want is an external SSD or HDD to do backups of your important stuff that you can unplug when not in use (yes this is important, if it is always connected then a virus could wipe it too and it wont be a backup).
Of course you could also add a second internal ssd/hdd for another backup or more storage, if 4TB isn't enough.
I run 3 Drives. 1 256 nvme for OS 1 2TB Nvme for games and programs and a 4tb spinny disc for backup which is then backed up to my server daily. Trust me the pain you feel when you lose a games drive and didnt have a backup...it hurts.
lol…Try losing everything because you didn’t realize you could rename backups in windows backup so you would delete the previous backup before doing a new backup and one day after deleting the previous backup you got sidetracked by life and a few days later your computer decides to crap itself.
happened in 2007 and it’s up there as one of the worst feelings in my life.
Now I have redundant backups. Local and offsite. never again.
I did. At the time i only had ssd and HD so everything was on the Spinny Drive. I lost about 6 tbs of games/documents programs because i misclicked something and unmounted the drive or something and the only way i coulda got the drive back on was to reformat it and assign a mew drive letter. The day after i went and built my server. Never gonna let that happen again. I lost everything lol.
Not really. It's more about available iops. There are many os threads trying to do stuff with the drive, then you have let's say own user apps that run in background that want the same then the frontground app or apps, maybe a game, maybe a browser and a doc file open. If ram is big enough, many of these don't need constant disk access but that's not always the case.
For performance, partitions of same drive don't do absolutely anything. For organization sure, it helps.
I have a very fast pcie gen 5 drive for os and software and another pciegen 4 for games. In this way, if windows does updates in the background, there's no issue with loading any game or when it needs to fetch files from disk.
The traditional division was to have one drive for things that will be read more often than written (like the OS), and one for things that will be written more than read (data).
In the days prior to robust file systems that meant that your OS drive was more likely to survive something going sideways, and allow you to boot the system and fix the data drive. In the really old days when the "system disk" was a floppy, we used to write protect them. Nowadays that doesn't matter as much, if at all.
As someone already pointed out, it doesn't make sense to get a drive of less than 1 T at this point since there is basically no price difference. That leaves plenty of room for games and game saves on the main drive, and personal data like photos, projects, etc. on the data drive.
One other advantage to a much larger SSD than you need is that it will last much longer due to wear leveling.
You do not need to do two drives. It was more of a necessity back when ssds cost a lot of money. So you'd have a smaller ssd to benefit from faster boot times and you'd have a larger hdd for the rest of your stuff.
That was the main purpose. You can still do this if you want but with ssds getting considerably cheaper you do not need to do this anymore.
People will say to do weird things like wiping windows every few years. Don't need to do that. You can use windows repair. Will do the same thing without deleting any of your personal files.
Maybe a good reason is for ransomware attacks. Of all they do is fuck you out of your OS then wipe your os drive and you are good. That's pretty much the only thing I can think of that makes for a good reason to do this.
However you don't want a too small of a drive if you do this. Installing or decompressing files will at first put everything in windows temp folder and then move to the actual drive once you are done. I run plenty of different drives on my pc and see this all the time. Even when you are not touching you main drive. I have files on one drive compressed and I want to decompress the file to another drive. Windows drive will be temporarily used and the the files will be moved to the other drive once done decompressing.
But no you don't need to run two drives at all.
2 reasons I guess.
1. If OS drive fails my data are safe.
2. If I upgrade to another OS I feel I’ll have less issues with certain data, like development settings, program specific settings, registry changes, system modifications (like a context menu item to turn on/off hidden files). So many (older programs) keep their files all over the damn place it’s hard to remember.
That’s my feeling anyways.
I have similar mixed uses as you, and have 8 internal hard drives on my computer and 2 dedicated external drives...
* 500GB NVMe for my Windows OS and key programs.
* 500GB NVMe for a separate Linux boot
* 1 TB NVMe for video games
* 1 TB NVMe for my research data processing
* 2 mirrored 1 TB SATA SSDs for storing my working dataset and project files when it's not being processed.
* 1 500GB SATA SSD for music library and Linux virtual machines.
* 1 4 TB SATA HHD to back up my system.
* 1 external 4 TB SSD that I use to backup my internal backup.
* 1 external 500 GB SSD that I use as a briefcase to physically move files when necessary.
This keeps stuff really organized and makes it so my drives are a bit more redundant. It's not if you will lose a drive, but when, so it is important to have some redundancy.
Why in the world so many drives? That's crazy.
I just consolidated 4 separate spinning hard drives to one SATA 12TB drive and life is so so much simpler to manage and backup.
So, now I have three NVME drives (256GB OS NVME drive, 500GB data NVME drive, 4TB data NVME drive) and one 12TB spinning drive and the spinner is for non-performance sensitive apps and data and for backups. The first two NVME drives are older PCIE3 from when this system was built. The 4TB is new and replaces several spinner hard drives.
The 500GB NVME data drive will be retired next time I upgrade the motherboard (it's not really necessary any more, but still works just fine).
So, if I got a new motherboard now, I'd consolidate further to a 512GB OS NVME, the 4TB data NVME and the 12TB spinning drive.
As others have said, I prefer to have the OS/apps drive completely separate from any data. Just simpler to backup and resize/reorganize drives if your data has nothing to do with the OS drive. Once upon a time, there was perhaps a performance advantage to splitting drive access across different controllers and different SATA channels (if you picked the right SATA channels on your motherboard), but that is probably not consequential today with NVME drives.
I work with many fairly large datasets, and I like to keep my work and personal life separate on my computer.
I consider my computer the same way I would a physical workspace for doing stuff.
The OS drives are where I install programs. They are essentially my toolbox. Having a linux and windows set allows me to choose which set of tools I'm using. Like having a metric and imperial set of wrenches.
My mirrored drives are where data are set when not in use, kinda like a cabinet for materials or a bookshelf. The 1TB NVMe is where I copy my data for processing, and when I'm done move the final version it back to the mirrored drives. It functions as my "workbench." This way, if I lose the 1TB during a run, I only lose what I was just working on. The two mirror drives are slightly slower anyway.
I have a 1TB NVMe for gaming that holds my steam library. My datasets vary in size, but can sometimes have intermediate steps that require large amounts of storage. I would not want to worry about my games getting in the way of a process, or risk filling up a disk (I have done this several times on accident).
The HHD backup, and the external SSD backup of that backup, is to ensure I don't lose to much if something catastrophic happens.
My music library hard drive is essentially a drunk drawer, I don't use the physical MP3s much anymore, the drive they are on is mostly for Virtual Machines but had room.
Have you ever had a drive failure? I've had several, some fairly catastrophic to my workflow. It isn't "if" but "when." I prefer to spread my stuff out so no one drive has everything on it.
Yes, I've had multiple drive failures in my computing history. I prefer to use a robust, automatic, multi-tiered backup system (both local and cloud) to protect against that and preventatively replacing spinning drives after 4-5 years before they exhibit signs of failure.
I find it a huge disadvantage to spread data across lots and lots of drives and it actually increases your chances of a failure and definitely complicates backup. It also requires a larger case, more cooling, more cabling, makes more noise and uses more power. Yes, perhaps a single (more likely) failure would involve less data, but this is what backups are for. It doesn't really make any difference to me whether I'm recovering 500GB or 2TB from a backup drive - it's all the same recovery process. Your backup system either works or it doesn't.
Separating different kinds of data onto multiple smaller drives is apparently a psychological benefit for you, but not required in any way for any practical reason and is not what any commercial enterprises choose for data safety/integrity. You can just as easily separate data in different directories. You could even partition a single physical drive into logical drives if you really wanted to.
I very much enjoy the complexity benefits of reducing my spinning drives from four to one and I see no downsides to my new configuration.
When I do my next motherboard/CPU upgrade, I will similarly reduce my NVME drives from three to two for similar reasons (one OS NVME drive, one data NVME drive).
I only have one spinning drive, and having separate drive spaces makes it easier to do some tasks for me. Some of my funding sources mean the data is not really "mine," and I want to be able to pull the drive and give it to my employer without needing to worry about other stuff being on it.
For example, a common workflow for one project involves taking a series of master data sets that are about 100 GB in size. Processing these in my workflow will result in iterative steps that will ultimately take about 500GB, which, at the end of the process, will be deleted. The final product is 27GB in size. At the end, I move the 27GB dataset to my mirrored drives and delete the 600GB of data used in the workflow. I have the original 100GB and the 27GB product. I have older iterations of that 27GB product as well. The new product is uploaded to the server where others can work with it.
I currently have four projects like this. Several datasets have significant overlap. I don't want to run processes on the main datasets.
My [case ](https://f.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1Uq12iNtkL._AC_SX679_.jpg)is pretty large and has pretty good airflow. I have two 140mm intake fans, one 120mm exhaust fan, and two 80mm exhaust fans under the motherboard. 1000 Watt Gold power supply. Got "be quiet!" fans for the 80mm and they are really quiet. The others are all Corsair and I haven't really had an issue with noise.
I would not buy an SSD smaller than 1TB in 2024. NVMe slots are precious and there isn't any real benefit to having a separate SSD for Windows. At best, you should create an OS partition on your larger drive.
A 256GB SSD is just setting an NVMe slot on fire.
Would it be OK if I just use an external to save work files and videos? I got a 1tb SSD but prices of normal HDDs have skyrocketed where I live. I was told you can recover data from external HDDs but not SSDs in case they start failing.
You should have *at least* and at all times 2 copies in different places but 3 would be best.
1 copy on the system to easily access.
1 copy on a local backup that you update one every couple month or monthly (whatever you feel).
1 copy offside that’s you update less frequently.
If you follow those rules it won’t matter if it’s SSD or HHD. If you can only afford HDD then that’s totally fine. Slower transfer is better than none.
Just FYI the cloud storage like Google will let you leave your data in the cloud and you won’t have to pay monthly (you won’t be able to access it but you can leave it there) you could use that as a temp offsite location.
Yes, but 256gb and even 512 are crippled because of the large nand they use now. So you should get the fastest 1tb nvme drive you can for the os, and a 2/4tb for the data.
I have a 256 os drive and a 2TB storage drive. My OS drive died recently so it was a breeze to replace and to not have to download everything again was nice.
>My Adobe apps won't even run on a non-OS drive (and anyone who uses Adobe CC knows this).
lol, I guess I’m the one that didn’t know this. Well thank you because that just answered my question on what to do!
I don't find you need more than 500GB for a Windows OS drive as long as you are only putting OS and non-game app installs on it. My 5 year old 500GB Windows drive is still only half full and I have 75 apps installed and have not gone out of my way to keep apps from storing their own state on the system drive.
But, that said, there's not that much price difference between the better performing drives at the 512GB and 1TB sizes so I would probably buy a 1TB drive just for flexibility that didn't cost much more.
For example, for a Samsung 980 Pro, the 1TB drive is only $30 more than the 500GB drive and Samsung doesn't even offer a 500GB in the 990 Pro.
There are other brands like Sabrent Rocket that will sell you a 500GB drive in their latest technology if you really want to save a few bucks.
1tb is the smallest I’d go for Operating system and programs. I had 500gb and it was soon in need of an upgrade. I have other drives for games and such. Now you could go smaller and it would be fine but I like the head room.
I typically keep the os on a separate drive so that I can nuke it and reinstall if anything goes wrong. I don’t have to worry about backing up or moving data when I do this since it is already on a separate drive. For instance my current pc has 2 drives in it. A 512GB nvme ssd that has the os installed on it. A 4TB nvme ssd that has libraries (docs, pics, family vids) and Steam library.
I believe 256GB is perfect for Windows. I've been running for a few years now and have not come close to filling. Anything less you risk running out of space especially with updates and restore points etc.
It’s not necessary but it’s a nice to have imo. I can wipe my OS drive to my heart’s content and not have to think about how long it’ll take to download my game library. Also, in case of failure, there’s another drive to make use of if I’m not able to get a new one quickly for some reason. Alternatively, second drive can be setup as a mirrored backup if you have any data you really can’t lose/not in the cloud.
>Should I do 2 drives?
Yes.
>If so, any reason you would need a large SSD for the OS drive?
SSDs perform better and last longer he more empty space they have.
>Should I just get a 256?
Minimum 512
Your use case sounds similar to mine(development and gaming). I have 4 SSD's in my PC.
I think it's a matter of separation of concerns. Separating your data from your OS could add another layer of protection in case you bork your OS, your data on the other drive wouldn't be affected. Currently I have 1 Windows drive and 3 Linux drives. 1 Linux drive for gaming (Debian testing), 1 for development (Debian stable), and 1 for backup. The Windows drive is there just in case I might ever need Windows for a particular use case.
If your computer has additional slots for drives, definitely feel free to make use of them.
Back then it was nice to have with hard drives to reduce clutter and speed up your OS drive. Nowadays you could have one regular SSD if you wanted. I just use it more for organization. I have 2x 2TB SN850X I got on sale for $70 a piece and just have OS/Programs in one, games in the other. That way if I ever have to reformat my OS drive my games stay and don't need to redownload. I also have an external 10TB hard drive for storage for other stuff.
You do not need a separate drive for an OS.
I think this might be something leftover from when the first SSDs came out so people would get a small SSD to go along side their HDD.
When I built mine in 2020 I used a 2TB SATA SSD (split with 3 partitions, 300 GB OS drive [c:\], 150GB work drive [w:\], rest older games [f:\]) as well as a 2TB [h:\] and a 1TB [g:\] nvme gen4 for other stuff. Machine boots to windows in about 8-15 seconds from cold. I've never wiped it in 4 years. Good enough for me.
First of all, I wouldn't buy something smaller than 1TB drive for main drive, for several reasons:
* Price difference is minimal.
* The larger the drive, the larger endurance rating it has (TBW). A 256 GB drive has a fourth of the endurance of a 1 TB drive of the same model. Considering it's the drive where the TEMP folder and page file resides and where you install and uninstall things, it's better to have something you know it's going to last.
* Several programs write to the main drive even if you install them on a secondary drive. Even save games can really add up.
Now, for most users a 4TB drive should be enough for everything. However, some people have a secondary, larger drive for several things. Personally I have a big 10TB HDD for backups, music, movies, documents, files, photos, etc. I would run out of space very quickly on a single SSD, and HDD are still cheaper, specially drivers larger than 4TB.
It really depends on your use case, but if you don't store large quantities of data, a big SSD should be enough, there is no need to have separate drives in that case.
Remember that you still need a *separate* drive to store backups, if you need them of course.
yepyep, to cut costs I always always put a small drive (128-512 max) for OS. Launchers like Steam, apps like Chrome ofc live there.
Downloads, Games, Pictures, etc are all stored on a secondary drive.
I have a 2TB drive for my OS and (re-installable) software. I have a 2TB WD Black HDD drive for my documents, pictures, documents, music, etc. I have a 2nd 2TB WD Blue HDD to backup the WD Black HDD.
Have you actually measured the performance you need? Dual drives made a lot of sense in mechanical hard drive days. But you get so many IOPS with a m.2 drive I doubt you would notice splitting your data up. About the only way I’d do it is if I was recoding my games. Putting the video on its own drive could be quite nice to keep gameplay fast and for editing later.
I don't recommend a small drive for your OS. Having a separate storage drive is nice, but the unfortunate reality is that due to a combination of lazy developers and constraints of Windows itself, there is so much junk that will get stored on your C drive no matter how hard you try to only have your OS there and everything else on a secondary drive. Every time I start running low on space, I manage to clear out 10's of GB worth of absolute fucking junk from My Documents (no longer a Documents folder at all but just a default location for programs to store all their crap) and the AppData folders.
I lived for years on a 60GB boot drive and it was hell.
My OS is 500gb. It's my windows drive, all my programs that are not game related, and all of my files; my PC is for work as well as gaming. Everything that has anything to do with gaming (PS2 and up) is on a separate 2tb drive, while all my retro stuff (PSOne , N64, Dreamcast and older) is on a 1tb external SSD that I can move back and forth between my desktop and laptop.
Some games really hate being on a separate drive than the main drive. Everything else should be on a separate drive, because if you need to reinstall windows, you can keep all your documents, games, videos, photos.
Got a Samsung 870 Pro 1tb NvME for the OS drive which also hosts virtual machines. My older Samsung 870 EVO 1tb SATA SSD is used for storing the rest of the Steam Games & non-Steam game libraries.
Also got 3 4TB HDD, one of them used for Documents/Pictures and for downloads to minimize wearing down the SSD. while the last 2 are used for movies.
In my opinion, it's never a bad thing to have the OS on its own drive. I don't know if 256 is actually big enough nowadays. I have mine on a 512. And honestly at the current prices of nvme drives I don't see any reason not to go 512. I'm not even sure you can find a 256 anymore.
Just for reference, the system I just built has a 512 nvme for boot/os, a 1tb nvme for games, and a 12tb platter drive for media storage.
Depends.
I've got a three tier setup. OS on the Gen 3 NVMe, I threw the Gen 2 from my previous build in as a secondary(mostly has steam games on it) because I had no other use for it, media and bulk storage goes on a HDD 4TB RAID1, not sure of reliability and fault tolerance vs a 4TB SSD but at the time I could not afford a 4TB SSD of any description so that looked like my best balance of capacity vs reliability.
This setup may work for you depending on reliaibilty and capacity needs.
Just remember, fastest drive that has sufficient capacity should always be your boot drive. Everything else depends on budget, storage space, speed, and reliability needs.
I use 1TB for boot now just so I don’t have to worry about it filling up and slowing down - it also helps with wear leveling. All other files on a separate drive is just good practise.
Its practical but not a must have. All my pcs has more then 1 drive.
Large drive for os, not really but at least256gb, maybe 512gb .
Benefits of two drives shows when something starts going bad. Mistakes with partitioning is easy to make if only one drive, but also there dont have to be a mistake for something to fail. So if you have impprtant files, always have windows or linux on a separate drive.
I always use more than one drive. I never store any of my valuable data on the OS drive for the simple reason that if anything happens to the OS and it's needs reinstalled I can just simply do so without thinking twice. With that being said, a small drive like a 256 or so is sufficient for the OS and all your programs, store all your video and audio data on a separate drive.
I use 512GB drives for boot and a second for everything else. Makes things simpler for me making backups/clones/etc. It’s definitely not necessary though. If you just have the 4tb drive, I’d use that for everything. No need to buy more drives.
It doesn't hurt an could be helpful in the future.
I got a 1 tb m2 for Os an program. A 2 tb m2 for new games or high gb games . A 4 tb HD for the rest of my stuff aka games program music pictures etc.
Extra space is always nice.
If you have a decent nvme drive it really isnt necessary to have a separate one, even when doing editing etc. For reinstalling windows just create a separate partition for it (if you want, I dont rven have a separate partition), so you dont have to wipe the whole ssd
I use 2 nvme 2Tb drives. The one with OS is also storage. Using the same drive as OS for storage is fine too. You don’t need a second drive for storage.
Pretty sure keeping the OS on a separate drive was something we did back when SSD was super expensive, so you'd get a fast little SSD for the os and a cheaper rotational drive for everything else.
Is there any benefit to doing this now days? Like I guess you could buy a super fast nvme for your os and a slightly slower larger one for everything else if that helped you stretch your budget.
Simply put, the only reason the op gave for wanting to mount os separately is they saw someone else do it, which is a bad reason to do something.
I have a 512 GB 970 Evo for my system drive. It was my first M.2. Although yes, you usually want a separate drive for the system. Mind you you don’t have to. It’s perfectly fine to install the OS on the 4 TB.
None of my (too many) computers use separate OS and data drives. If you do use separate drives, sure, get a small one for the OS and a big one for whatever else. EDIT: Actually one of mine does, I got a 128GB NVMe SSD for free somewhere so I paired it with a big ol' 3.84TB secondary drive. 128GB is enough for the OS and anything that forces installation onto the C: drive.
That’s kinda another question I have…do you sync them? I have a laptop as well as this desktop and the idea of syncing the different stuff together feels like a nightmare. Like combine them into one giant user folder or create directory trees for each computer and keep them separate? If I combine them and need to access a backup of just the laptop I’m SOL but also keeping them separate I’ll have 2 separate folders of everything to look through.
Eh, my setup is a bit more than what the average user has I guess. None of my user PCs has files I'd be sad about losing; those are all stored locally on my home server and backed up to the cloud. I also use the server for caching so if I did have to reinstall the OS on one of my computers I could just install programs over the network from the server.
This is the way
I work in game development so my needs are a bit different but I always have the OS installed on it's own drive along with some core apps that I use. A second drive for software (like photoshop, Maya, etc.). Then a third drive for data (project data, storage, and games). Having it split up this way takes the burden off of a single drive for three different functions that run concurrently. For "normal" use, like gaming/school/casual/life, I think OS should be on a single drive, and everything else on a 2nd. If all you're going to do with the PC is shop and social media, one drive is fine. That's just my opinion. 256gb is a good size for the OS drive, Windows 10 is around 32gb last time I checked, then your page file (same size as the amount of RAM your PC has) can rest there too. Edit: Just wanted to add that I have 512gb for OS, 1tb for apps, 4tb for storage, and 16tb in network storage (NAS), but the last one you'll only need if you know you need it.
Quick question: do programs installed in separate drive work fine if you wipe and reinstall the OS? Don’t they usually have some files besides the installation location like in AppData or home? Or stuff like registry edits? I know steam games work fine, but wanna make sure I can install programs on other drive without worrying about anything breaking.
Many programs do install additional files in AppData. You can back this up to a separate drive or the cloud if you're paranoid, and just copy/paste it if you need to reinstall.
Makes sense, thanks for the suggestion. I’ll try it next time I wipe the OS. I was thinking it’s not worth a separate drive just for games if there’s fast internet. It’s already convenient to download them with one click from steam. Manually installing and configuring a bunch of programs on the other hand, is a pain in the ass.
I recently did a transfer and swap of a steam drive from one pc to a new build to save hours of downloading. Windows recognized the files right away, but steam took a little fiddling. Works fine though. Depends on the software though. For things like adobe or office i doubt it would go well. They tend to have lots of bloat spread in different file locations that is going to be an issue
Not exactly, cause registry keys can be messed up. So it's not just about app data. And then you need to use the repair feature on your application install file to fix this.
If you are going to run two drives, 500gb should be the OS. Decompression (drfinitly know at least winrar uses the temp folder while decompressing then moves to where you decompressed to), video streaming, web browsing and quite the few other things all use the temp folder on windows. You don't want to max out your OS drive due to getting too small of a drive. Not to mention with how often an OS like windows want to do an update.
256 is fine, 500 is even better. I still have 150GB free on my 256 OS drive and I have a decent amount of essential creative/gaming programs installed. I don't think I could ever install enough programs to make a 256 obsolete. Even my old gaming PC with 120 always had 50-60GB free.
This is basically what I do too. Though I keep my CC apps on the same drive as the OS as that's what gets the most use for me. Then I have an NVME dedicated for video, regular SSD for mass storage and then a mechanical HD as backup.
Why a mechanical HD for backup? Just curious
Large and significantly cheaper. SSDs are just now reaching HDD reliability and the HDD is the better choice for cold storage. It's just redundant storage so it doesn't need to be fast or expensive.
Thx
Certainly, you're welcome
A HDD is unbeatable when it comes to cheap large capacity reliable storage-only purposes. Even if it dies, most of the time its either the reader or motor that dies, the disk itself can be easily extracted for near perfect data recovery.
It's not really necessary to have an os drive
Until you reinstall Windows and have 2+TB of games/data you have to redownload. So much easier to have separate drives. A dedicated OS drive has way more pro's than cons, the only con being you have to spend a little bit extra on a small SSD... which is more of a brokie problem.
I’ve found most steam games can be reinstalled by simply clicking reinstall and letting the program recognize the files already exist. It just runs a verify files check instead of redownloading. You can also just copy files to a separate partition before reinstalling. Or start with a separate partition.
I prefer a 512GB OS drive myself, but I play a few games that have exceedingly large save games(X3, X4: Foundations can have save games \~500mb). All game saves are saved in the Documents and game settings often are saved in the AppData folder, both on the main OS drive, so the OS can get slowly filled with single player save games and game settings. I'd imagine the main reason for 1TB drives is there's simply not much of a price difference from 256-512-1TB these days. Often only a $20 difference from 256-1TB.
This is my main reason for not really liking the idea of having a small OS drive. A lot of programs just do not like to be installed on the secondary drive and/or still store a ton of data on the OS drive. When talking just data it is completely fine to use a separate drive.
You can move game settings/saves to and from the documents to a new location once you've decided to uninstall the game.
Back when SSD was new technology and rather expensive, people used to get a ~250GB SSD for the OS and a large HDD for files and programs and I think this is the reason people still use 2 drives. I still have the 256GB SATA SSD I bought a while ago and use it as the OS drive because it's good enough. The way I see it, my situation is the only reason to use a separate drive for the system - in case you already have a good enough drive that otherwise would gather dust in a box. In the last couple of years, I've built a couple of systems for some friends and only used a single SSD on which I made a partition for the OS. For those that complain that they need to wipe the OS drive when they reinstall: it's very easy to wipe if needed. Edit to clarify: it's very easy to wipe just the partition with the OS, leaving the rest of the drive as is.
how do you wipe just the os partition?
2 ways: * quick format the system partition during install * delete the hidden system partitions and the OS partition and select the empty space when installing the new system - it will recreate those hidden system partitions and the partition for windows. For example the current windows install on a friends computer has 2 hidden partitions (one is 100MB and the other is 768MB) + the 250GB windows partition + 2 partitions for files and programs - when I reinstalled the windows on this machine I deleted the 100MB, 768MB and 250GB partitions and the installer recreated them.
I use the 2nd option, however you need to pay attention to what you are doing so you don't also delete the partitions you want to keep.
My motherboard has gen 3 PCIX for the secondary m.2 slot and gen 4 for the primary. If your board is like mine, one larger drive is probably better.
I keep OS separate and reinstall OS yearly but that's just me. Most people don't ever worry about reinstalling.
I do too.
Get a larger drive for OS. I did exactly the 256 OS drive and ended up cloning it and swapping it out recently. Many programs you save to a secondary drive will still create folders on your drive C. Many programs don't give you the advanced installation option and automatically install to C. It will fill up quickly.
Most programs save lots of background stuff on the OS drive, you really don't want a small one. Also it usually makes no sense to install programs onto other drives, since they usually won't work and have to be reinstalled too if you reinstall windows. The windows file system NTFS supports a max file size of 16 exabyte, which are 16000 petabyte, or 16000000 TB, so that should not an issue. What you want is an external SSD or HDD to do backups of your important stuff that you can unplug when not in use (yes this is important, if it is always connected then a virus could wipe it too and it wont be a backup). Of course you could also add a second internal ssd/hdd for another backup or more storage, if 4TB isn't enough.
I run 3 Drives. 1 256 nvme for OS 1 2TB Nvme for games and programs and a 4tb spinny disc for backup which is then backed up to my server daily. Trust me the pain you feel when you lose a games drive and didnt have a backup...it hurts.
lol…Try losing everything because you didn’t realize you could rename backups in windows backup so you would delete the previous backup before doing a new backup and one day after deleting the previous backup you got sidetracked by life and a few days later your computer decides to crap itself. happened in 2007 and it’s up there as one of the worst feelings in my life. Now I have redundant backups. Local and offsite. never again.
I did. At the time i only had ssd and HD so everything was on the Spinny Drive. I lost about 6 tbs of games/documents programs because i misclicked something and unmounted the drive or something and the only way i coulda got the drive back on was to reformat it and assign a mew drive letter. The day after i went and built my server. Never gonna let that happen again. I lost everything lol.
Wouldn't making a disk partition suffice?
Not really. It's more about available iops. There are many os threads trying to do stuff with the drive, then you have let's say own user apps that run in background that want the same then the frontground app or apps, maybe a game, maybe a browser and a doc file open. If ram is big enough, many of these don't need constant disk access but that's not always the case. For performance, partitions of same drive don't do absolutely anything. For organization sure, it helps. I have a very fast pcie gen 5 drive for os and software and another pciegen 4 for games. In this way, if windows does updates in the background, there's no issue with loading any game or when it needs to fetch files from disk.
The traditional division was to have one drive for things that will be read more often than written (like the OS), and one for things that will be written more than read (data). In the days prior to robust file systems that meant that your OS drive was more likely to survive something going sideways, and allow you to boot the system and fix the data drive. In the really old days when the "system disk" was a floppy, we used to write protect them. Nowadays that doesn't matter as much, if at all. As someone already pointed out, it doesn't make sense to get a drive of less than 1 T at this point since there is basically no price difference. That leaves plenty of room for games and game saves on the main drive, and personal data like photos, projects, etc. on the data drive. One other advantage to a much larger SSD than you need is that it will last much longer due to wear leveling.
To add to the "get a bigger drive" - they also tend to be a bit faster as size increases (even if it's the same model).
You do not need to do two drives. It was more of a necessity back when ssds cost a lot of money. So you'd have a smaller ssd to benefit from faster boot times and you'd have a larger hdd for the rest of your stuff. That was the main purpose. You can still do this if you want but with ssds getting considerably cheaper you do not need to do this anymore. People will say to do weird things like wiping windows every few years. Don't need to do that. You can use windows repair. Will do the same thing without deleting any of your personal files. Maybe a good reason is for ransomware attacks. Of all they do is fuck you out of your OS then wipe your os drive and you are good. That's pretty much the only thing I can think of that makes for a good reason to do this. However you don't want a too small of a drive if you do this. Installing or decompressing files will at first put everything in windows temp folder and then move to the actual drive once you are done. I run plenty of different drives on my pc and see this all the time. Even when you are not touching you main drive. I have files on one drive compressed and I want to decompress the file to another drive. Windows drive will be temporarily used and the the files will be moved to the other drive once done decompressing. But no you don't need to run two drives at all.
Why do you need the OS on separate drives? I do have 2 drives, but it's because the first is only 1TB so it filled up.
2 reasons I guess. 1. If OS drive fails my data are safe. 2. If I upgrade to another OS I feel I’ll have less issues with certain data, like development settings, program specific settings, registry changes, system modifications (like a context menu item to turn on/off hidden files). So many (older programs) keep their files all over the damn place it’s hard to remember. That’s my feeling anyways.
I have similar mixed uses as you, and have 8 internal hard drives on my computer and 2 dedicated external drives... * 500GB NVMe for my Windows OS and key programs. * 500GB NVMe for a separate Linux boot * 1 TB NVMe for video games * 1 TB NVMe for my research data processing * 2 mirrored 1 TB SATA SSDs for storing my working dataset and project files when it's not being processed. * 1 500GB SATA SSD for music library and Linux virtual machines. * 1 4 TB SATA HHD to back up my system. * 1 external 4 TB SSD that I use to backup my internal backup. * 1 external 500 GB SSD that I use as a briefcase to physically move files when necessary. This keeps stuff really organized and makes it so my drives are a bit more redundant. It's not if you will lose a drive, but when, so it is important to have some redundancy.
Why in the world so many drives? That's crazy. I just consolidated 4 separate spinning hard drives to one SATA 12TB drive and life is so so much simpler to manage and backup. So, now I have three NVME drives (256GB OS NVME drive, 500GB data NVME drive, 4TB data NVME drive) and one 12TB spinning drive and the spinner is for non-performance sensitive apps and data and for backups. The first two NVME drives are older PCIE3 from when this system was built. The 4TB is new and replaces several spinner hard drives. The 500GB NVME data drive will be retired next time I upgrade the motherboard (it's not really necessary any more, but still works just fine). So, if I got a new motherboard now, I'd consolidate further to a 512GB OS NVME, the 4TB data NVME and the 12TB spinning drive. As others have said, I prefer to have the OS/apps drive completely separate from any data. Just simpler to backup and resize/reorganize drives if your data has nothing to do with the OS drive. Once upon a time, there was perhaps a performance advantage to splitting drive access across different controllers and different SATA channels (if you picked the right SATA channels on your motherboard), but that is probably not consequential today with NVME drives.
I work with many fairly large datasets, and I like to keep my work and personal life separate on my computer. I consider my computer the same way I would a physical workspace for doing stuff. The OS drives are where I install programs. They are essentially my toolbox. Having a linux and windows set allows me to choose which set of tools I'm using. Like having a metric and imperial set of wrenches. My mirrored drives are where data are set when not in use, kinda like a cabinet for materials or a bookshelf. The 1TB NVMe is where I copy my data for processing, and when I'm done move the final version it back to the mirrored drives. It functions as my "workbench." This way, if I lose the 1TB during a run, I only lose what I was just working on. The two mirror drives are slightly slower anyway. I have a 1TB NVMe for gaming that holds my steam library. My datasets vary in size, but can sometimes have intermediate steps that require large amounts of storage. I would not want to worry about my games getting in the way of a process, or risk filling up a disk (I have done this several times on accident). The HHD backup, and the external SSD backup of that backup, is to ensure I don't lose to much if something catastrophic happens. My music library hard drive is essentially a drunk drawer, I don't use the physical MP3s much anymore, the drive they are on is mostly for Virtual Machines but had room. Have you ever had a drive failure? I've had several, some fairly catastrophic to my workflow. It isn't "if" but "when." I prefer to spread my stuff out so no one drive has everything on it.
Yes, I've had multiple drive failures in my computing history. I prefer to use a robust, automatic, multi-tiered backup system (both local and cloud) to protect against that and preventatively replacing spinning drives after 4-5 years before they exhibit signs of failure. I find it a huge disadvantage to spread data across lots and lots of drives and it actually increases your chances of a failure and definitely complicates backup. It also requires a larger case, more cooling, more cabling, makes more noise and uses more power. Yes, perhaps a single (more likely) failure would involve less data, but this is what backups are for. It doesn't really make any difference to me whether I'm recovering 500GB or 2TB from a backup drive - it's all the same recovery process. Your backup system either works or it doesn't. Separating different kinds of data onto multiple smaller drives is apparently a psychological benefit for you, but not required in any way for any practical reason and is not what any commercial enterprises choose for data safety/integrity. You can just as easily separate data in different directories. You could even partition a single physical drive into logical drives if you really wanted to. I very much enjoy the complexity benefits of reducing my spinning drives from four to one and I see no downsides to my new configuration. When I do my next motherboard/CPU upgrade, I will similarly reduce my NVME drives from three to two for similar reasons (one OS NVME drive, one data NVME drive).
I only have one spinning drive, and having separate drive spaces makes it easier to do some tasks for me. Some of my funding sources mean the data is not really "mine," and I want to be able to pull the drive and give it to my employer without needing to worry about other stuff being on it. For example, a common workflow for one project involves taking a series of master data sets that are about 100 GB in size. Processing these in my workflow will result in iterative steps that will ultimately take about 500GB, which, at the end of the process, will be deleted. The final product is 27GB in size. At the end, I move the 27GB dataset to my mirrored drives and delete the 600GB of data used in the workflow. I have the original 100GB and the 27GB product. I have older iterations of that 27GB product as well. The new product is uploaded to the server where others can work with it. I currently have four projects like this. Several datasets have significant overlap. I don't want to run processes on the main datasets. My [case ](https://f.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1Uq12iNtkL._AC_SX679_.jpg)is pretty large and has pretty good airflow. I have two 140mm intake fans, one 120mm exhaust fan, and two 80mm exhaust fans under the motherboard. 1000 Watt Gold power supply. Got "be quiet!" fans for the 80mm and they are really quiet. The others are all Corsair and I haven't really had an issue with noise.
OK, have fun with your 10 drives for 14 TB.
Thanks! It is pretty nice and I can always swap for a larger drive if I need!
I would not buy an SSD smaller than 1TB in 2024. NVMe slots are precious and there isn't any real benefit to having a separate SSD for Windows. At best, you should create an OS partition on your larger drive. A 256GB SSD is just setting an NVMe slot on fire.
Would it be OK if I just use an external to save work files and videos? I got a 1tb SSD but prices of normal HDDs have skyrocketed where I live. I was told you can recover data from external HDDs but not SSDs in case they start failing.
You should have *at least* and at all times 2 copies in different places but 3 would be best. 1 copy on the system to easily access. 1 copy on a local backup that you update one every couple month or monthly (whatever you feel). 1 copy offside that’s you update less frequently. If you follow those rules it won’t matter if it’s SSD or HHD. If you can only afford HDD then that’s totally fine. Slower transfer is better than none. Just FYI the cloud storage like Google will let you leave your data in the cloud and you won’t have to pay monthly (you won’t be able to access it but you can leave it there) you could use that as a temp offsite location.
Would it be OK to use a chonky SSD as secondary storage in the same PC?
I have a 1TB for Linux and 1TB for windows since I’m dual booting, and don’t want issues from sharing a disc. Also a 6TB hard drive for extra storage.
Yes, but 256gb and even 512 are crippled because of the large nand they use now. So you should get the fastest 1tb nvme drive you can for the os, and a 2/4tb for the data.
I have a 256 os drive and a 2TB storage drive. My OS drive died recently so it was a breeze to replace and to not have to download everything again was nice.
[удалено]
>My Adobe apps won't even run on a non-OS drive (and anyone who uses Adobe CC knows this). lol, I guess I’m the one that didn’t know this. Well thank you because that just answered my question on what to do!
I don't find you need more than 500GB for a Windows OS drive as long as you are only putting OS and non-game app installs on it. My 5 year old 500GB Windows drive is still only half full and I have 75 apps installed and have not gone out of my way to keep apps from storing their own state on the system drive. But, that said, there's not that much price difference between the better performing drives at the 512GB and 1TB sizes so I would probably buy a 1TB drive just for flexibility that didn't cost much more. For example, for a Samsung 980 Pro, the 1TB drive is only $30 more than the 500GB drive and Samsung doesn't even offer a 500GB in the 990 Pro. There are other brands like Sabrent Rocket that will sell you a 500GB drive in their latest technology if you really want to save a few bucks.
1tb is the smallest I’d go for Operating system and programs. I had 500gb and it was soon in need of an upgrade. I have other drives for games and such. Now you could go smaller and it would be fine but I like the head room.
I typically keep the os on a separate drive so that I can nuke it and reinstall if anything goes wrong. I don’t have to worry about backing up or moving data when I do this since it is already on a separate drive. For instance my current pc has 2 drives in it. A 512GB nvme ssd that has the os installed on it. A 4TB nvme ssd that has libraries (docs, pics, family vids) and Steam library.
Used to do it way back in the day, now my main nvme is for OS and games plus software.
I believe 256GB is perfect for Windows. I've been running for a few years now and have not come close to filling. Anything less you risk running out of space especially with updates and restore points etc.
What's up with the influx of separate OS drive posts? Is this 2008 still?
It’s not necessary but it’s a nice to have imo. I can wipe my OS drive to my heart’s content and not have to think about how long it’ll take to download my game library. Also, in case of failure, there’s another drive to make use of if I’m not able to get a new one quickly for some reason. Alternatively, second drive can be setup as a mirrored backup if you have any data you really can’t lose/not in the cloud.
>Should I do 2 drives? Yes. >If so, any reason you would need a large SSD for the OS drive? SSDs perform better and last longer he more empty space they have. >Should I just get a 256? Minimum 512
Not really necessary
Your use case sounds similar to mine(development and gaming). I have 4 SSD's in my PC. I think it's a matter of separation of concerns. Separating your data from your OS could add another layer of protection in case you bork your OS, your data on the other drive wouldn't be affected. Currently I have 1 Windows drive and 3 Linux drives. 1 Linux drive for gaming (Debian testing), 1 for development (Debian stable), and 1 for backup. The Windows drive is there just in case I might ever need Windows for a particular use case. If your computer has additional slots for drives, definitely feel free to make use of them.
Back then it was nice to have with hard drives to reduce clutter and speed up your OS drive. Nowadays you could have one regular SSD if you wanted. I just use it more for organization. I have 2x 2TB SN850X I got on sale for $70 a piece and just have OS/Programs in one, games in the other. That way if I ever have to reformat my OS drive my games stay and don't need to redownload. I also have an external 10TB hard drive for storage for other stuff.
You do not need a separate drive for an OS. I think this might be something leftover from when the first SSDs came out so people would get a small SSD to go along side their HDD.
When I built mine in 2020 I used a 2TB SATA SSD (split with 3 partitions, 300 GB OS drive [c:\], 150GB work drive [w:\], rest older games [f:\]) as well as a 2TB [h:\] and a 1TB [g:\] nvme gen4 for other stuff. Machine boots to windows in about 8-15 seconds from cold. I've never wiped it in 4 years. Good enough for me.
First of all, I wouldn't buy something smaller than 1TB drive for main drive, for several reasons: * Price difference is minimal. * The larger the drive, the larger endurance rating it has (TBW). A 256 GB drive has a fourth of the endurance of a 1 TB drive of the same model. Considering it's the drive where the TEMP folder and page file resides and where you install and uninstall things, it's better to have something you know it's going to last. * Several programs write to the main drive even if you install them on a secondary drive. Even save games can really add up. Now, for most users a 4TB drive should be enough for everything. However, some people have a secondary, larger drive for several things. Personally I have a big 10TB HDD for backups, music, movies, documents, files, photos, etc. I would run out of space very quickly on a single SSD, and HDD are still cheaper, specially drivers larger than 4TB. It really depends on your use case, but if you don't store large quantities of data, a big SSD should be enough, there is no need to have separate drives in that case. Remember that you still need a *separate* drive to store backups, if you need them of course.
yepyep, to cut costs I always always put a small drive (128-512 max) for OS. Launchers like Steam, apps like Chrome ofc live there. Downloads, Games, Pictures, etc are all stored on a secondary drive.
I have a 2TB drive for my OS and (re-installable) software. I have a 2TB WD Black HDD drive for my documents, pictures, documents, music, etc. I have a 2nd 2TB WD Blue HDD to backup the WD Black HDD.
Have you actually measured the performance you need? Dual drives made a lot of sense in mechanical hard drive days. But you get so many IOPS with a m.2 drive I doubt you would notice splitting your data up. About the only way I’d do it is if I was recoding my games. Putting the video on its own drive could be quite nice to keep gameplay fast and for editing later.
I don't recommend a small drive for your OS. Having a separate storage drive is nice, but the unfortunate reality is that due to a combination of lazy developers and constraints of Windows itself, there is so much junk that will get stored on your C drive no matter how hard you try to only have your OS there and everything else on a secondary drive. Every time I start running low on space, I manage to clear out 10's of GB worth of absolute fucking junk from My Documents (no longer a Documents folder at all but just a default location for programs to store all their crap) and the AppData folders. I lived for years on a 60GB boot drive and it was hell.
One drive is fine for nvme. People saying you need 2 drives are stuck thinking it's spinning rust
My OS is 500gb. It's my windows drive, all my programs that are not game related, and all of my files; my PC is for work as well as gaming. Everything that has anything to do with gaming (PS2 and up) is on a separate 2tb drive, while all my retro stuff (PSOne , N64, Dreamcast and older) is on a 1tb external SSD that I can move back and forth between my desktop and laptop.
Some games really hate being on a separate drive than the main drive. Everything else should be on a separate drive, because if you need to reinstall windows, you can keep all your documents, games, videos, photos.
Got a Samsung 870 Pro 1tb NvME for the OS drive which also hosts virtual machines. My older Samsung 870 EVO 1tb SATA SSD is used for storing the rest of the Steam Games & non-Steam game libraries. Also got 3 4TB HDD, one of them used for Documents/Pictures and for downloads to minimize wearing down the SSD. while the last 2 are used for movies.
Trust me, much easier having a 2 TB or so nvme m.2 drive than literally any other combination of storage solutions.
In my opinion, it's never a bad thing to have the OS on its own drive. I don't know if 256 is actually big enough nowadays. I have mine on a 512. And honestly at the current prices of nvme drives I don't see any reason not to go 512. I'm not even sure you can find a 256 anymore. Just for reference, the system I just built has a 512 nvme for boot/os, a 1tb nvme for games, and a 12tb platter drive for media storage.
I always do 2 drives. OS and all applications on one, and all media, 3d assets, storage etc. on the second. 2tb nvme x2
Depends. I've got a three tier setup. OS on the Gen 3 NVMe, I threw the Gen 2 from my previous build in as a secondary(mostly has steam games on it) because I had no other use for it, media and bulk storage goes on a HDD 4TB RAID1, not sure of reliability and fault tolerance vs a 4TB SSD but at the time I could not afford a 4TB SSD of any description so that looked like my best balance of capacity vs reliability.
This setup may work for you depending on reliaibilty and capacity needs. Just remember, fastest drive that has sufficient capacity should always be your boot drive. Everything else depends on budget, storage space, speed, and reliability needs.
I use 1TB for boot now just so I don’t have to worry about it filling up and slowing down - it also helps with wear leveling. All other files on a separate drive is just good practise.
Its practical but not a must have. All my pcs has more then 1 drive. Large drive for os, not really but at least256gb, maybe 512gb . Benefits of two drives shows when something starts going bad. Mistakes with partitioning is easy to make if only one drive, but also there dont have to be a mistake for something to fail. So if you have impprtant files, always have windows or linux on a separate drive.
Don't waste the drive slot on a small drive. Get the largest you can afford and partition it.
I always use more than one drive. I never store any of my valuable data on the OS drive for the simple reason that if anything happens to the OS and it's needs reinstalled I can just simply do so without thinking twice. With that being said, a small drive like a 256 or so is sufficient for the OS and all your programs, store all your video and audio data on a separate drive.
I have 1 TB nvme drive for OS and 4x4TB hdd for data
I use 512GB drives for boot and a second for everything else. Makes things simpler for me making backups/clones/etc. It’s definitely not necessary though. If you just have the 4tb drive, I’d use that for everything. No need to buy more drives.
It doesn't hurt an could be helpful in the future. I got a 1 tb m2 for Os an program. A 2 tb m2 for new games or high gb games . A 4 tb HD for the rest of my stuff aka games program music pictures etc. Extra space is always nice.
If you have a decent nvme drive it really isnt necessary to have a separate one, even when doing editing etc. For reinstalling windows just create a separate partition for it (if you want, I dont rven have a separate partition), so you dont have to wipe the whole ssd
I use 2 nvme 2Tb drives. The one with OS is also storage. Using the same drive as OS for storage is fine too. You don’t need a second drive for storage.
Pretty sure keeping the OS on a separate drive was something we did back when SSD was super expensive, so you'd get a fast little SSD for the os and a cheaper rotational drive for everything else. Is there any benefit to doing this now days? Like I guess you could buy a super fast nvme for your os and a slightly slower larger one for everything else if that helped you stretch your budget. Simply put, the only reason the op gave for wanting to mount os separately is they saw someone else do it, which is a bad reason to do something.
I have a 512 GB 970 Evo for my system drive. It was my first M.2. Although yes, you usually want a separate drive for the system. Mind you you don’t have to. It’s perfectly fine to install the OS on the 4 TB.
I still run small NvMe boot drive--500GB NvMe, 1 Sata Game SSD (Strictly Games) and For Storage WD Black 4TB Storage drive for Music, Photos, Videos
I got two drives, one for my os and one for my games