[SOLVED] Multiple HDD or Multiple Partitions?

May 30, 2020
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Hello all! I'm planning on doing a bit of reorganizing soon and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

So I have a M.2 for my OS and Apps. Then I have a 2TB HDD for games and Data. I'm planning on separating the games from the data and then further separating the data into different types. (ie. Personal, Projects, Writing, Reading(PDFs of books), Media, etc.)

While I eventually plan to get a couple more SSDs right now I have a bunch of extra Heads sitting around so I'm going to use those if needed

My question is rather I should use separate physical drives for each thing or rather I should use a large drive and break into Partitions.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Solution
Hello all! I'm planning on doing a bit of reorganizing soon and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

So I have a M.2 for my OS and Apps. Then I have a 2TB HDD for games and Data. I'm planning on separating the games from the data and then further separating the data into different types. (ie. Personal, Projects, Writing, Reading(PDFs of books), Media, etc.)

While I eventually plan to get a couple more SSDs right now I have a bunch of extra Heads sitting around so I'm going to use those if needed

My question is rather I should use separate physical drives for each thing or rather I should use a large drive and break into Partitions.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
A separate drive for backups would...
Hello all! I'm planning on doing a bit of reorganizing soon and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

So I have a M.2 for my OS and Apps. Then I have a 2TB HDD for games and Data. I'm planning on separating the games from the data and then further separating the data into different types. (ie. Personal, Projects, Writing, Reading(PDFs of books), Media, etc.)

While I eventually plan to get a couple more SSDs right now I have a bunch of extra Heads sitting around so I'm going to use those if needed

My question is rather I should use separate physical drives for each thing or rather I should use a large drive and break into Partitions.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
A separate drive for backups would make sense but for ordinary use it doesn't matter. As any drive can die at any time it would be more secure to have separate disks but that may cause a problem with overcrowding.
 
Solution
Leave the 250GB SSD alone as Boot drive and game installation (Drive C).

Partition the HDD to fit your need (Drive D, E, F...)

Add a third drive to have the whole SSD (Drive C) and first HDD cloned from time to time (you choose what time to clone what disk).
 
Hello all! I'm planning on doing a bit of reorganizing soon and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

So I have a M.2 for my OS and Apps. Then I have a 2TB HDD for games and Data. I'm planning on separating the games from the data and then further separating the data into different types. (ie. Personal, Projects, Writing, Reading(PDFs of books), Media, etc.)

While I eventually plan to get a couple more SSDs right now I have a bunch of extra Heads sitting around so I'm going to use those if needed

My question is rather I should use separate physical drives for each thing or rather I should use a large drive and break into Partitions.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Just to keep it simple I would stay away from multiple disks.
The more you have the greater the chance one of them will have problems.
Partitions work but the downside is when a partition gets full.
Perhaps get one big hdd and divide it into folders.
Then setup an auto backup of the hdd.

Leave you OS and apps on the ssd and setup an auto backup of it.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
if he already has spare hard drives, no point buying 1 big one. Might as well use what he has until he buys more ssd, and then it makes sense to buy as big as you can afford. But putting everything on 1 drive just feels too dangerous to me.

prior to the current PC I would always partition the hdd into at least 2 partitions, especially the storage drive. But that got messy on last PC and due to getting a bigger nvme than I had planned on, my need to split the hdd is less.
last pc I had same as your current set up, ssd as boot and 2 tb drive, for my limited usage that was enough.

So far never found a use for partitioning ssd, mainly as its normally my boot drive and no point putting anything on boot drive you not willing to lose. So its normally just windows, or was on last install. Having 1tb boot drive means I don't see need to put that much on hdd.
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
Hello all! I'm planning on doing a bit of reorganizing soon and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

So I have a M.2 for my OS and Apps. Then I have a 2TB HDD for games and Data. I'm planning on separating the games from the data and then further separating the data into different types. (ie. Personal, Projects, Writing, Reading(PDFs of books), Media, etc.)

While I eventually plan to get a couple more SSDs right now I have a bunch of extra Heads sitting around so I'm going to use those if needed

My question is rather I should use separate physical drives for each thing or rather I should use a large drive and break into Partitions.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Their no reason to partition the drive you can use different folders instead. Using different folders you can't run out of room like having the partition for personal data to small and needing a larger partition.

Just make a folder for each one and direct that information to that folder.
 
What do you hope to accomplish by re-organizing and partitioning?

If you have not yet done so, arrange for EXTERNAL backup for anything that you can not afford to lose.
A HDD in an external usb housing is a good use of a HDD.

There is no performance benefit when using multiple drives or partitions.
In fact partitioning on a HDD can negatively impact performance.

To get the capacity you need, I would look to fewer/larger devices.
Space is more easily managed without partitions.