Question Big storage (2tb+) for OS drive, good or bad?

[diciannove44]

Are there any downside of having big storage drive for OS?
Right now I have a single m.2 2TB that has OS, programs and applications and other media (games, videos, pics, etc.)

I'm aware that if by any chance the drive or OS is corrupted, then it'll be serious issue since everything inside will be damaged and needs to be freshly reinstalled. But imo, would it not be a waste of m.2 slots if, say, you're only using 500gb to occupy that one m.2 slots? So example you have 500gb + 2tb m.2, so only 2.5tb total storage. But instead you can go with 2TB + 2TB, or 2TB+ 4TB = 4TB or 6TB of total storage to maximize efficiency.

 

[MWink64]

My personal preference is to use a large drive, with a small partition for the OS. That way, you can reinstall the OS without having to wipe the whole drive.

 

[CountMike]

The answer is regular backup and then you can put anything you want on any size OS drive. For OS and programs but other storage just for data.
Larger SSDs are faster and more durable. If you have to change or reinstall OS, programs installed on other disks/partitions are not likely to work anyway so it doesn't matter where they are, you'd have to reinstall them.
Unlike HDDs, SSDs do not benefit of partitioning or are fragmented but shouldn't be overfilled and should leave more free space for proper operation.
Any drive can fail at any time, no matter how they are used so again , only backup can save your data which is usually more valuable than disk they are on.
There's also "Murphy's law of warehousing", Any free space will fill up sooner than later. Leave enough space now or you will most likely have to expand again soon.

 

[Moonstick2]

I used to be an advocate of the idea of a separate partition for data, especially years back before SSDs.

These days, after a few OS reinstalls due to upgrades or an SSD failure, I'm more back towards a single one-partition drive for OS + data, with separate drives for things like Steam, backups, media...large files, basically. Mostly this is down to (i) Windows still assuming C: for everything including your data and (ii) other users of the computer tending to use things like the Desktop for file storage.

Essentially, when I had separate SSD drives for OS and data and the OS one failed, yes I didn't have to restore the data, but given the amount of hassle it took to reinstall the OS, then configure it for the hardware, programs, all the various user settings and repoint it towards the separate data drive, I'd rather have just restored a C: image. And if you're imaging/restoring the drive, imaging/restoring the data on it as well isn't really that much extra work when all's said and done.

I remember how Win98SE used to benefit from a fresh install as crud built up in it over time, but to be honest, for all their faults Windows 10/11 doesn't really corrupt and require reinstallation like previous Windows used to.

In your situation, just make sure you've got a 4TB external drive and make a regular updated image of your entire drive. As well as that, backup your irreplaceable data too, in addition to the image. (Because those backups will be much faster, so you'll be more likely to do them more often.) And make sure you've multiple copies of your irreplaceable data on different drives/media/cloud, if you haven't already.

 

[diciannove44]

I used to be an advocate of the idea of a separate partition for data, especially years back before SSDs.

These days, after a few OS reinstalls due to upgrades or an SSD failure, I'm more back towards a single one-partition drive for OS + data, with separate drives for things like Steam, backups, media...large files, basically. Mostly this is down to (i) Windows still assuming C: for everything including your data and (ii) other users of the computer tending to use things like the Desktop for file storage.

Essentially, when I had separate SSD drives for OS and data and the OS one failed, yes I didn't have to restore the data, but given the amount of hassle it took to reinstall the OS, then configure it for the hardware, programs, all the various user settings and repoint it towards the separate data drive, I'd rather have just restored a C: image. And if you're imaging/restoring the drive, imaging/restoring the data on it as well isn't really that much extra work when all's said and done.

I remember how Win98SE used to benefit from a fresh install as crud built up in it over time, but to be honest, for all their faults Windows 10/11 doesn't really corrupt and require reinstallation like previous Windows used to.

In your situation, just make sure you've got a 4TB external drive and make a regular updated image of your entire drive. As well as that, backup your irreplaceable data too, in addition to the image. (Because those backups will be much faster, so you'll be more likely to do them more often.) And make sure you've multiple copies of your irreplaceable data on different drives/media/cloud, if you haven't already.

in terms of external backup drive, is it ok if it's an HDD instead of SSD (external)?

 

[Flayed]

But imo, would it not be a waste of m.2 slots if, say, you're only using 500gb to occupy that one m.2 slots?

Yes, I think you are right, it would be a waste to use a 500GB m2 if you can afford a larger drive.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm aware that if by any chance the drive or OS is corrupted, then it'll be serious issue since everything inside will be damaged and needs to be freshly reinstalled.

This is specifically what a good backup routine is for.

If any or all of my drives were to die right now, I could be back up and running, exactly as it was early this morning.

But to your question:
I personally prefer 1 drive for the OS and applications, other physical drives for other things.

Other people prefer the simplicity of a single large drive, holding everything.

There is no definitive "best".

 

[Moonstick2]

in terms of external backup drive, is it ok if it's an HDD instead of SSD (external)?

Totally. It's more important to have an external drive (not always connected).

It's very highly recommended that you have multiple backups as well, not just the one. Personally, in addition to the data on the internal OS M.2 drive, I've backups on an internal standard SSD, an external HDD and a second off-site HDD. I may even also end up with a networked SSD too.

But one backup as the absolute minimum. If you don't have a back-up at the moment then get an additional drive and at the very least copy and paste your data over to it as soon as possible, even if you can only afford a smaller drive right now. Drives really can fail without warning at any moment.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

in terms of external backup drive, is it ok if it's an HDD instead of SSD (external)?

I run my PC like a server. I have 3 HDD's. I didn't do a RAID setup. My OS is on a 2 TB SSD and I have my original 500GB SSD that I use for the backup images of the OS in case of problems. The 3 HDD's are shared on my Home Network so there's music and movies and other things at everyone's fingertips. All the data on the 3 HDD's is backed up on other HDD's that are sitting in a cool dry place in case of emergency.

You can get some good deals on large capacity HDD's. There are also videos on how to "shell" them if you want to use them as internal drives. That's what I did. They are connected by SATA. Works like a charm.

Don't use SSD's for archiving - where you put info on them and then remove them. There is information that SSD's that are out of service can degrade and potentially become unusable. I don't know that to be true, but I've never heard that about HDDs. (HDDs = mechanical drives)

edit - you can certainly store images of your OS on an HDD. It's just a matter of copying that file to the new SSD in the event an SSD has a failure. I've done that too, but have that extra SSD, so I just put in on that now for faster transfer in the event something happens.

 

[ubronan]

I use a 4 TB as my os and have another 2 TB for the games i play
For backup i run a 16 TB external drive which is usb-c connected where i make monthly backups and run daily backups onto my 32 TB raid 5 nas so in any disaster i can restore my system almost certain at the state it was.
My first bad disaster situations with nvme drives is in the paste, so i trust the newer ones to be as sturdy as the old trusted harddrives.
Modern NVME will last equally many years but better safe than sorry

 

[Silas Sanchez]

Remember a 4TB is really only 3.6TB in windows and big games nowadays are 80-120GB each, they are only gonna get bigger.
One downside to having games on C: is when you image/backup the C: the image is huge, so some like to install their games on separate drive so they can be easily reinstalled via steam.
Still, todays capacity is so dam high I dont see the logic in it. My plan was to go 8TB for my C: but all 8tb are mediocre and overpriced. Funny how people love telling us about the 3000TBW yet many peoples drives are failing within just a few years of casual lite use. Then 16TB will eventually be the norm, when the come out and are cheap enough I will get them, I forsee 16tb being the "ok this is probably enough" territory.

Further, I dont use steam to play games because its a corrupt capitalist toilet that hampers innovation. So my games are private offgrid and free of DRM, that means I actually own them for life and that strengthens the idea of having them on my C:. Not gonna put up with disgusting mob behavior of having steam accounts locked, games no longer working for no logical reason etc.

My master backup drives are just WD red pro drives. in external HDD enclosures, dollar per GB is pretty cheap. No fancy complicated raid, nas or anything. All checksumed and with many copies it imo does much better than error corecction and is faster to mantain.

 

[Bob.B]

Are there any downside of having big storage drive for OS?
Right now I have a single m.2 2TB that has OS, programs and applications and other media (games, videos, pics, etc.)

I'm aware that if by any chance the drive or OS is corrupted, then it'll be serious issue since everything inside will be damaged and needs to be freshly reinstalled. But imo, would it not be a waste of m.2 slots if, say, you're only using 500gb to occupy that one m.2 slots? So example you have 500gb + 2tb m.2, so only 2.5tb total storage. But instead you can go with 2TB + 2TB, or 2TB+ 4TB = 4TB or 6TB of total storage to maximize efficiency.

There might be a perf hit with everything on the same disk.

Think of what happens if a game wants access to the disk at the same time as the OS wants access.......something will have to wait.

Many folks will get a small disk for the OS and apps and a big disk for storage.

You can go super sized on all disk about the only thing you'll hurt is your wallet.

 

[Flayed]

When I finally get around to switching to Windows 11 at some point before support ends for Windows 10, I think I will get a 1TB m2 for the OS. Something with reasonably high random read and random write throughput.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Personally I hate large system partitions, if you need to reinstall or roll back you lost a bunch of stuff. Usually I do around 120-250GB (depending on how much Microshaft demands with their "latest and greatest" and to allow room for updates and apps that refuse to install anywhere but C:\

 

[RARRAF]

Personally I have 2 x 250gb ssd 1 with windows and the other I clone every month so any system failure is not a problem. One 1tb nvme and one 2tb nvme which I might have to upgrade the 1tb nvme. But games on all of the nvme drives.

 

[Moonstick2]

There might be a perf hit with everything on the same disk.

Think of what happens if a game wants access to the disk at the same time as the OS wants access.......something will have to wait.

That was more of a thing with mechanical drives, where movement of the head between different the OS region and the game region would introduce latency*, but with SSDs/NVMes I don't think it makes any perceivable difference. The majority of game disk access is level loading anyway.

Personally I have my games on a separate disk and think it's a good thing for other reasons, but I do think multiple disks and/or partitions makes very little performance difference compared to the HDD days.

* And partitions towards the edge were faster!