Question Is 2TB M2 and then a 500GB M2 for OS redundant?

[Titanion]

Two questions. One for me and another for a friend.

Is there any benefit having the OS on a smaller separate drive these days?

Me. I purchased a a 2TB M2 SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD. I also have an older 500GB M2 SAMSUNG 980 SSD that I intended to put in a laptop but never got to it.

I'm setting up a new gaming system based on a 9900K and 3060ti. Is there any benefit putting the OS and apps and a few games on the 500Gb 980? Or should I use that for something else and just put the OS and everything I regularly use on the 2TB. My thought is for the latter, that the 500GB would be redundant. And if it doesn't really help this system, I can use it in a different, less privileged build. Heck, I also have 4TB and 2 TB 7200 HDDs for storage and anything else I need.

My friend: He has W10 OS running on a 120GB SSD. 500GB HDD for older games. He also has two 1 TB SSDs for storage and working with music. I told him he needs to dump the 120 and put his OS on one of the two 1TB SSDs, and use it for the OS, apps, some games, his music projects, everything. He will still have the 2nd 1TB SSD, and he can add a 2TB HDD for storage additional storage later.

Thanks.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Two questions. One for me and another for a friend.

Is there any benefit having the OS on a smaller separate drive these days?

Me. I purchased a a 2TB M2 SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD. I also have an older 500GB M2 SAMSUNG 980 SSD that I intended to put in a laptop but never got to it.

I'm setting up a new gaming system based on a 9900K and 3060ti. Is there any benefit putting the OS and apps and a few games on the 500Gb 980? Or should I use that for something else and just put the OS and everything I regularly use on the 2TB. My thought is for the latter, that the 500GB would be redundant. And if it doesn't really help this system, I can use it in a different, less privileged build. Heck, I also have 4TB and 2 TB 7200 HDDs for storage and anything else I need.

My friend: He has W10 OS running on a 120GB SSD. 500GB HDD for older games. He also has two 1 TB SSDs for storage and working with music. I told him he needs to dump the 120 and put his OS on one of the two 1TB SSDs, and use it for the OS, apps, some games, his music projects, everything. He will still have the 2nd 1TB SSD, and he can add a 2TB HDD for storage additional storage later.

Thanks.

It is an advantage to keep the OS on a separate drive from your games. If something happens and you need to wipe and reinstall the OS you won't have to spend hours/days downloading all the games again. I personally have my OS on a 240GB SSD and games on a 2TB SSD. In your instance you use the 500GB for OS/Applications as those things are easy to download and install again.

 

[Math Geek]

The benefit of the is being in a separate drive is that if something happens to the os, your data is still safe on the other drive. I've been doing it this way for years. I don't even hesitate to do a fresh install knowing I only lose some programs I have to reinstall. Otherwise nothing else changes in my system.

I recommend doing it this way for these reasons.

As for your friends setup. Nothing wrong with using different drives for different activities. I have 5 drives that are each dedicated to a different task. OS, data, temp video editing files, and other activities. Again keeps everything separate in case something goes wrong. It's not as much of an issue now with ssds, but with spinning disks trying to do multiple things on a single drive slows it all down. Only so much speed to go around. So rendering or other drive intensive tasks should be on its own drive. Same with is since it does a lot in the background and so on and so on

 

[Lafong]

My friend: He has W10 OS running on a 120GB SSD. 500GB HDD for older games. He also has two 1 TB SSDs for storage and working with music. I told him he needs to dump the 120 and put his OS on one of the two 1TB SSDs, and use it for the OS, apps, some games, his music projects, everything. He will still have the 2nd 1TB SSD, and he can add a 2TB HDD for storage additional storage later.

Thanks.

I don't see any advantage for your friend to move off the 120 gb SSD..............UNLESS it is starting to get crowded.

He's the best authority on that.

It's a case by case thing. I've never had even 60 GB occupied on C.

If the occupied space on it is now 50 gb and growing at the rate of 5 GB a year, he may be OK with it for years to come. If it is sitting at 100 GB right now, maybe move to a larger drive.

Maybe he has a better use for a spare 120 GB drive? Otherwise it sits in a drawer gathering dust or ends up in the trash can.

 

[Titanion]

If you do a fresh reinstall of the OS, and games are installed on drive D or something, aren't the games intimately installed through Windows? I thought the games install would be corrupted somehow?

A 500GB M2 SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus
is $30 right now, or maybe yesterday. Maybe I'll buy another one for mu OS in install, because I still have that laptop to fix.

 

[Math Geek]

Steam and some other launchers let you move the games to another drive. On reinstall you'd simply point the launcher back to the game files. Saves the download time.