Should I buy a separate boot drive?

[agirgis]

Do I need a separate SSD as a boot drive or will I be fine with one hard drive for everything.

 

[Lutfij]

If it's one HDD, it's a bad idea to have multiple partitions since it tends to laden the HDD with more tasks than it can handle. If it's one SSD, you can't partition it(as it'll just kill it) and you don't have any storage space for your critical data. I'd advise on having an SSD as the primary(boot/game) drive and have a mechanical drive to cater to storage needs with 2 partitions on it.

 

[SkyNetRising]

If it's one HDD, it's a bad idea to have multiple partitions since it tends to laden the HDD with more tasks than it can handle.
If it's one SSD, you can't partition it(as it'll just kill it) and you don't have any storage space for your critical data.

I'm sorry, WHAT?! None of that is true.

You can have multiple partitions on HDD. It doesn't cause additional utilization to the hdd.
Partitioning of SSD doesn't kill it. That's just rubbish!

 

[karenjoly]

Two drives minimum are best. Included in the well versed "storage"/ "speed" arguments to my mind is the notion that a second drive will provide adequate space for back ups of the C drive in case of disaster. You might use Macrium Reflect Free to store an image of the C drive , updated as necessary, on the second drive. In this arrangement, storage is usually a much larger HDD while the C drive is a speedy SSD but it does not matter so much about hdd/sdd as long as you have a back up plan and the resources to implement it. If everyone had back ups there would be much less need for a storage forum.

 

[aquielisunari]

Do I need a separate SSD as a boot drive or will I be fine with one hard drive for everything.

Do you NEED a SSD? Nope.

Do YOU need a SSD? Do you do a lot of editing, CAD and other tasks that need real time data? A SSD will help.

Do you just use the PC for normal everyday tasks like movies and other videos, school/ basic office work and gaming? Just use the HDD.

What happens when you put all your eggs in one basket and it breaks? It's safer to have at least 2 drives with one dedicated to backups.

 

[11201ny]

Do I need a separate SSD as a boot drive or will I be fine with one hard drive for everything.

Overall, seems like a good idea. I have my macOS system on internal SSD. All files on a separate redundant RAID. I also have a boot clone - jic.