Question My PC has three storge drives. How can I consolidate some of this?

[matt4723]

Hello everyone. I have a storage question.

Right now my PC has three storage drives...

C: is a 275gb 2.5" SSD, which contains my Windows 10 OS and some frequently used programs. Currently, this drive has 93.5 GB free.
F: is a 1TB 3.5" HDD, which contains my libraries and the rest of my programs. Currently, this drive has 128 GB free.
H: is a 500 GB 2.5" HDD that came out of a dead laptop. Originally I installed this drive to recover some stuff, but it has become a "random junk" drive. Currently, this drive has 58.7 GB free.

I have decided that I want to add a 500 GB M.2 SSD to the mix, likely replacing the one in there now. However, all these drives have become very difficult to manage, finding anything has become a pain, and having all these drives in here is putting my measly 600W power supply through the wringer, since it's also powering an i7-7700K, a GTX 1070, a 212 EVO CPU cooler, and multiple case fans. My other option is to put a bigger SSD in there - maybe 1 TB - and replace all of these other drives with a single 3 or 4 TB HDD (I have a lot of games, and don't delete anything).

I know there are many utilities out there to migrate the contents of my current SSD into the new one, but is there any good way to combine the other two drives into one larger one, without losing all my programs and data? Since none of my programs rely on the H: drive (it's simply a backup/junk drive), would I just be able to migrate the F: drive to the new one using the same process as the SSD, and simply copy/paste the contents of H: over?

Thanks
Matt

 

[k1114]

Hdds and ssds are 6w or less. Even consolidating to a single ssd, you are only saving ~12w. Fans are also about 2w. This is not what's putting your psu through the wringer. A good quality 500w could run those specs with extra capacity for more drives and fans without issues. I'm going to guess the psu is bad quality or has an issue if you've already been helped and narrowed it down to a power issue.

Now that that's out of the way, I think you are just wanting to do this to get more storage space and go down to maybe 2 drives. One large ssd and 1 large hdd seems logical and easy. Clone C to the new ssd. Clone F and H to the new hdd. Copying may not get all files. You can clone and merge partitions.

 

[matt4723]

Yeah I'm not having a power issue, I'm just concerned about giving my PSU too much to handle.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Yeah I'm not having a power issue, I'm just concerned about giving my PSU too much to handle.

As stated, less than 6 watts per HDD and less for SSD - you probably draw more power with an LED lit up on your fans.
If you want to consolidate, you have to buy a big drive and put everything on one drive, there is no other solution.

 

[Sgt_Sykes]

I'd get a 1TB SSD for Win and programs and 3TB (or whatever) HDD for everything else.

Or just a 2TB SSD for everything if it's not too expensive for you and you don't need more space. Games are good to have on SSD as well.

As for programs, you have 2 options:

1. On a new drive, create a partition F:, and clone the F; from your old drive tot he new one. (Also clone C: obviously.) This way your old programs will work but it may still be a bit of a mess.
2. Just clone C: and reinstall the programs from old F: again to your new drive. A bit of work but everything will be in one place.

I'd do 2) since once a program is installed, it doesn't matter where it is, nothing difficult about it. You just double click to launch.

Back in the day Norton Utilities (I think) had an option to migrate programs from one partition to another when changing the drive letter, but it tended to make a mess of things. I don't know if such an option still exists.

As for data, you can move it whenever you want. It's not a bad idea to have a separate partition for data anyway.

I don't know why it would be hard to manage. I have 5 drives with 11 partitions and 4 operating systems. Now THAT is a mess. I'll need to consolidate is one day once I get one drive big enough to hold all the data, and a bigger SSD for the programs.

Your PSU is fine. My 5 drives and a bazillion fans are hooked to a 580W CPU which has been going for 10 years (it's a good Corsair unit tho.. Let's not jinx it).

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah I'm not having a power issue, I'm just concerned about giving my PSU too much to handle.

Multiple physical drives (either HDD or SSD) is absolutely not an issue about the PSU not being able to handle it.

Consolidating this data is all up to you, and manually done.
Moving programs around only works if the target drive or partition ends up with the same 'drive letter' as what it was originally.
Your personal file can, of course, be moved around as needed.