Question One hard drive partitioned or 3 separate ones?

[paka14]

Hi,

I have a question- is it better to buy one m.2 1TB PCIe drive and divide it into partitions (1 for system, 1 for photos etc and 1 for games and programs) or separately 1 SSD 120GB for system, 1 HDD 500gb for photos etc and 1 SSD 512gb for games and programs? I'm wondering if separate drives, despite the decrease of performance, would be safer solution?
For example, if I had a virus on this one m.2 1tb drive on the partition with games, is it possible to format only this one partition?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and answers, regards.

 

[USAFRet]

I prefer multiple drives, but not the config you list.

500GB SSD for the OS and applications, some other single drive (another SSD) for games and other stuff.

Other people prefer a single large drive.

For the virus situation? A virus can attack all partitions or physical drives.
The best way to recover from that is a good backup routine.

 

[paka14]

So maybe just this one m.2 1tb with two partitions- one for OS and one for files games etc?

 

[jay32267]

I run an SSD large enough for my Windows and programs and data.
I also run a large HDD and clone my SSD to an image file on the HDD every month or two.
This way.....if anything goes amiss on the SSD......I can always go back to a state that I was happy with.

 

[kanewolf]

120GB is too small for a system drive or partition. 250GB is the minimum recommendation. A PCIe drive would be OK, but I would do the multiple drive solution with 250GB for the system. If you have a hardware problem with multiple drives, you don't lose EVERYTHING.

 

[paka14]

Okej, thanks everyone for suggestions, I think I'll go with only 1tb m.2

 

[kanewolf]

Okej, thanks everyone for suggestions, I think I'll go with only 1tb m.2

Then you need to have an automated backup procedure. One issue and you potentially lose everything.

 

[paka14]

Then you need to have an automated backup procedure. One issue and you potentially lose everything.

I know, obvious Thanks all

 

[USAFRet]

I know, obvious Thanks all

A large percentage of all the issues we see here could have been trivially solved with a good backup routine, and knowing how to recover from a problem.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[geofelt]

Okej, thanks everyone for suggestions, I think I'll go with only 1tb m.2

I like that solution best.
It is much easier to manage one large C drive space.
Performance with a SSD is the same, regardless if you have one or 3 drives.

And... yes, you should have a external device backup regardless.
A usb attached HDD is not expensive. Disconnect it after you have done your backup.