Drive management for new build

Guest2 · 25 Oct 2020 at 00:28

I currently have the following drives and i'm deciding what to do with them when I (hopefully) get a Zen 3 CPU. The new motherboard I have supports 4x SATA 6Gb connectors and 3x PCIe 4.0 x 4

C - Samsung EVO 850. 120GB. OS.
D - Sabrent Rocket M.2 PCIe Gen3 x 4. 2TB. Games/currently some backed up photos
E - Crucial M4. 128GB. OS backup
F - Samsung EVO 850. 500GB. Unused
G - Samsung EVO 850. 250GB. Software/Documents

My plan was to keep my current OS backup on the Crucial drive and just wipe and re-install Windows 10 on the current C:
Games and programs are on seperate drives so not sure if i'll have to re-install those too (even if they are actually on the drives, not sure if they will work)

I like the idea of keeping OS on a reasonabily small disk as I have done for years so that it can be cloned & restored if need be.
If I use the Sabrent drive for OS, I expect Windows 10 will grow as it pleases and it'll become a mess. Plus cloning it to another drive would not be possible do to others being smaller. I could partition for say 500GB OS and use the F: for its backup but not sure I want to chop up the Sabrent or if partition would cause any issues. It would mean a nice fast OS drive though having Windows on the M2

I could just buy a secondary PCIe 4 M2 drive for OS but would rather not spend more money

heatonpkmassive · 25 Oct 2020 at 01:59

What's your actual question?

Screenbeat · 25 Oct 2020 at 02:15

Unplug and step away from the computer!!

Guest2 · 25 Oct 2020 at 07:41

heatonpkmassive said:
What's your actual question?

Which drive is best to have OS on?

The_Arbiter · 25 Oct 2020 at 07:47

You shouldn't really have backups internally, the chances of failure increase. I'd just leave OS on a 120gb

heatonpkmassive · 25 Oct 2020 at 10:48

Guest2 said:
Which drive is best to have OS on?

I tend to agree with you and just isolate that and software to the smallest SSD, always disconnecting all other drives before installing. I'm running a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo as my boot drive, with various software installed and ALL games going onto the other 5 SSDs, it still has 147GB available so I'll probably stick with that for a while. If it ever approaches full, I have plenty of other drives to create a Program Files folder and just stick stuff there. The only reservation I'd have in your case is if that 120GB would fill up, but only you know how much space you currently have on that drive. I'm thinking more if Windows grows, as it tends to do.

But nowt wrong with having it on the smallest drive. Games, if they have a client such as Steam, Origin, can then reside on the larger drives and you'd only need to reinstall the clients after rebuilding and point them to these drive libraries, the client would verify the game and your games are reinstalled within minutes without lengthy downloads. I've done it that way for years, Windows reinstalls are a breeze nowadays if you're a gamer who has a lot of storage space. Any other software that used the Windows installer and which reside on the other drives would need reinstallation, as the original registry entries would not be there. Games don't need this if installed using a client as the client looks after all that.

heatonpkmassive · 25 Oct 2020 at 10:51

The_Arbiter said:
You shouldn't really have backups internally, the chances of failure increase. I'd just leave OS on a 120gb

Agree with this. All my backups are on offline mechanical drives that only spin when I need them.

Guest2 · 25 Oct 2020 at 12:43

Sorry, forgpt to say. The Crucial is unplugged.
I have ran out if space a couple of times when uncompressing files and C: is used by default as a temp unpack area.
Think i’m going to shift the software & docs to the 500GB and install OS on the 250GB

heatonpkmassive · 25 Oct 2020 at 13:40

That'd be a good solution.

edscdk · 25 Oct 2020 at 13:55

sell them all except the 2tb nvme, get a USB backup drive

1 partition, clean install windows 10 once every few years if you want a clean OS,

you are complicating your life and will likely end up with more problems than you solve by having many drives, and lots of partitions..

at the very least throw the tiny 128gb drives and the 200gb ones away and have the os on the 500gb if you really want it separate

EsaT · 25 Oct 2020 at 15:33

Agree with that many drives being more trouble to manage than they do any good.
Making OS partition on big drive has been used since last millennium.

And get USB dock for back up drive(s).
That would be lot easier than having to go trough the hassle of connecting/disconnecting internal drive.
You also need to detach power cable to protect it from PSU failures/lightning strike induced surges.