Pros / Cons of 1 vs 2 Drives

[Rom]

Currently I have a 4/5 year old Samsung SM951 256gb M2 NVME, speeds are 2260/1260
This is my OS drive, and has 2-3 games I play the most on. 28gb free

I have a 500gb Samsung EVO 850, speeds are 540/520. This has a few more games on, and use for /documents, /downloads, /pictures etc. 120 gb free

Im not a huge user, I dont play many games at the same time, usually just a couple really.

Ive got a Sabrent Rocket Gen 4 2tb for my new build. That I was planning on just having as my main drive, all games programs etc. Then using the 850 EVO for /documents, /downloads, /pictures etc.

Would there be any benefit to using the 256gb drive as OS, and the Sabrent for games? Im guessing I should try and benefit from the speed the most, and use Sabrent.

I dont run any raids, backups, clone etc. I have nothing on here I couldnt live without.
From my experience, even if I run a separate drive, thats makes reinstalling OS 'easier'. Everything on the other drive would no longer work anyway? Sure id have to reinstall the games anyway.

The Sabrent will more than double my current capacity, of which, im not even maxing out. So to me, it seems like just having the Sabrent as main drive is the best choice.

Just wanted to run it by you guys who no doubt no more

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Isn’t it quite self explanatory?

 

[Rom]

Well Ive given my thinking.

I was just asking if there is something Im missing, some reason that running a separate OS drive is beneficial that I havent listed or thought of.

 

[Guest2]

Well Ive given my thinking.

I was just asking if there is something Im missing, some reason that running a separate OS drive is beneficial that I havent listed or thought of.

Don’t worry, you always get unhelpful people on here. I asked a similar question as am in the same position (more drives but 2tb os vs os on smaller SSD)

Personally going to keep my game library on 2tb drive along with other important stuff like photos.
OS im putting on a 500GB 850 EVO

Game clients on OS drive and point to games on 2tb.

If the os disk gets infected /dies then its quick to rebuild

 

[EsaT]

Just partition drive with like 100-200GB for OS/programs.
That way if Windows goes nuts you can just format that partition to do fresh install without affecting rest of the data on drive.

 

[Rom]

Thank you.

But am I wrong in thinking the games would no longer work?
If i reinstalled OS, the games which were either on a partition, or separate drive, wouldnt work anymore would they?

 

[Quartz]

Would there be any benefit to using the 256gb drive as OS, and the Sabrent for games?

Absolutely. The benefits will come when you have to reinstall Windows or move to a new PC. Physical divisions are still preferable to logical divisions in this type of case.

Game clients on OS drive and point to games on 2tb.

This is precisely why. Plus install sets of everything.

 

[DeathStorm]

Back in the day I would have said yes definitely have separate drives but that's not the case with SSDs, a larger SSD offers better performance than a smaller comparable drive, the 2tb capacity greatly exceeds your needs so just partition the thing and be done with it.

If you need to reinstall your OS you just wipe and recreate the partition, I'm not seeing any practical advantage by keeping it to a separate drive. Neither choice prevents the requirement of backing up everything important.

 

[Guest2]

a larger SSD offers better performance than a smaller comparable drive, the 2tb capacity greatly exceeds your needs so just partition the thing and be done with it.

Not in all cases. Sabrent rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 read/write;
1TB (3400/3000)
2TB (3400/2750)

 

[Quartz]

Back in the day I would have said yes definitely have separate drives but that's not the case with SSDs, a larger SSD offers better performance than a smaller comparable drive

I think you've got it the wrong way around: higher capacity HDDs are generally faster than lower-capacity drives, but SSDs don't care about size - it's all about the speeds of the chips and the bandwidth of the interface.

 

[IvanDobskey]

I'd always have my operating system on my fastest drive.

 

[DeathStorm]

I think you've got it the wrong way around: higher capacity HDDs are generally faster than lower-capacity drives, but SSDs don't care about size - it's all about the speeds of the chips and the bandwidth of the interface.

I think you're referring to how mechanical drives work, larger capacity, less time for the heads to travel etc but that wasn't what I was referring to, most SSD's seem to perform better at larger capacities, increased endurance and less likely to suffer penalties from being near capacity.

Comparing the 512GB and 1TB versions of the Samsung 970 pro: 2,300 vs 2,700 MB/s write, 370K vs 500K IOPS random read etc.

I mean yes certainly there may be exceptions so we should always check specific models beforehand but generally it seems better to have one larger drive from what I've seen.

 

[Quartz]

Comparing the 512GB and 1TB versions of the Samsung 970 pro: 2,300 vs 2,700 MB/s write, 370K vs 500K IOPS random read etc.

Yes, but that's nothing to do with the size and everything to do with the speeds of the various chips.

 

[DeathStorm]

Yes, but that's nothing to do with the size and everything to do with the speeds of the various chips.

My point remains, the larger version of the SSD *usually* has higher performance and it's a reasonable argument in favour of a single larger drive.

While it's good to know the exact reason that's so it's irrelevant to the point being made where we're concerned with actual outcomes.

 

[EsaT]

Yes, but that's nothing to do with the size and everything to do with the speeds of the various chips.

It has precisely everything to do with size:
Small drives of the serie use fewer NAND-chips on fewer channels of the controllers lowering drive's internal parallelism. (similar to RAID0)
1TB is commonly that limit for high end drives to get full speed.
In some case 2TB drive can have tiny bit lower performance, because of having multiple NAND chips (or something like that) per controller channel and controller has to switch between those.

 

[Rom]

Can any one confirm, would games on a separate partition to OS, still work after OS was reinstalled? I dont think anyone has answered that yet, sorry if I missed it.

Im thinking Ive done this before but a separate physical drive, and the games wouldnt work. Although all the files were there, it wasnt 'installed' to the new OS.

 

[Dg834man]

Can any one confirm, would games on a separate partition to OS, still work after OS was reinstalled?

No they wont straight away but you can make them work again, steam is easy just point it to where the games are.

Others origin ect i usually initiate the download to a new folder on the other drive then close the program then cut and paste over the files to the new folder, then reopen whatever program is downloading the games, it starts the resuming download but quickly zips to 100% and your good to go. i have read you can just point the installer to the location of the games and it should just do the resuming bit but have never tested it

 

[DeathStorm]

Can any one confirm, would games on a separate partition to OS, still work after OS was reinstalled? I dont think anyone has answered that yet, sorry if I missed it.

We can't really definitively answer this because it depends on how the game installs itself.

Perhaps it would be better to ask, do you have so many games and reinstall your OS on such a regular basis that this is an important concern?

 

[Rom]

No they wont straight away but you can make them work again, steam is easy just point it to where the games are.

Others origin ect i usually initiate the download to a new folder on the other drive then close the program then cut and paste over the files to the new folder, then reopen whatever program is downloading the games, it starts the resuming download but quickly zips to 100% and your good to go. i have read you can just point the installer to the location of the games and it should just do the resuming bit but have never tested it

We can't really definitively answer this because it depends on how the game installs itself.

Perhaps it would be better to ask, do you have so many games and reinstall your OS on such a regular basis that this is an important concern?

Thanks,

No, I dont have that many games for it to be an issue. But then that brings me back to why even partition OS.

Appreciate the input. Ill stick with my original theory, of using the Sabrent 2tb as my main drive for OS and games. Then the 850 for docs, pics etc.

 

[EsaT]

Can any one confirm, would games on a separate partition to OS, still work after OS was reinstalled? I dont think anyone has answered that yet, sorry if I missed it.

If game keeps its data in its installation directory (and doesn't have some use limiting hanging itself into Windows) you could move game's directory freely without any need to resinstall it.
Again if game is made according to "modern" PC is one big garbage dump retardation and spreads its data into user directory etc there can be problems.
(especially game saves are problem)