Question Is it "safe" to change drive letter on larger storage drives?

[HWright001]

Hi! I have several large (10TB+) storage drives I use for work that have text docs, pictures, videos, and audio. I would like to change 3 of these drives in Windows 10 disk management to have a different drive letter so that they display in a certain order when they are displayed in my Windows Explorer list. I have found that displaying by drive letter is the easiest way to get said list, but I am cautious about changing the letter on such large drives full of important data. The drives do not have any software or shortcuts that will be disrupted by the drive letter change, just bulk data - but I am still cautious about this operation and wanted to get input from you guys before I did this. The super critical files are backed up, but I just don't have the space to fully backup all 3 drives.

Does anyone have experience changing drive letters/paths on very large, full drives? Is it "safe" or can there be issues?

 

[USAFRet]

Hi! I have several large (10TB+) storage drives I use for work that have text docs, pictures, videos, and audio. I would like to change 3 of these drives in Windows 10 disk management to have a different drive letter so that they display in a certain order when they are displayed in my Windows Explorer list. I have found that displaying by drive letter is the easiest way to get said list, but I am cautious about changing the letter on such large drives full of important data. The drives do not have any software or shortcuts that will be disrupted by the drive letter change, just bulk data - but I am still cautious about this operation and wanted to get input from you guys before I did this.

Does anyone have experience changing drive letters/paths on very large, full drives? Is it "safe" or can there be issues?

Depends what is on them.

If you've installed any applications to these drives, they will break.
If not, no problem.

As always, though....I never do anything without a known good full backup of everything.

 

[Misgar]

"but I just don't have the space to fully backup all 3 drives."

What happens when (inevitably) one or more of your 10TB drives stops working. Do you have alternate sources of all the files which aren't "super critical"?

I accept that buying another 30TB of storage could be expensive, but you're living on borrowed time and could lose vast quantities of data at any time.

A $25 portable USB DVD Writer plus a stack of blank 4.7GB DVDs would be a good start.