What should I do for storage?

[Dylzan]

Hi, I currently have a 2TB Seagate Barracuda with a 120GB Samsung 840 Evo installed in my PC. I am now getting to the point where my HDD is getting fairly full and I'm not the sort of person who really wants to leave games uninstalled. I also have a 500GB drive lying around but it is full of the portion I transferred to my new drive and I don't know how to format it. My first question is, is there an easy way to format this drive? My second question is, would it be better for me to get another 1 or 2 TB drive, or get a 3 or 4TB drive instead? Also, although I am assuming this is fine, can you mix drive manufacturers as long as you aren't planning on doing RAID of any sort? Thanks.

 

[Mattios]

Mixing manufacturers is no problem at all.

I would say it is up to you. If the 500Gb drive is fairly new (not likely to die soon) then I would suggest plugging it in and using it! But if you need more space then a new drive is the way to go.

Remember to keep backups on different drives - if a drive fails it can be very costly to recover data.

 

[Dylzan]

Mixing manufacturers is no problem at all.

I would say it is up to you. If the 500Gb drive is fairly new (not likely to die soon) then I would suggest plugging it in and using it! But if you need more space then a new drive is the way to go.

Remember to keep backups on different drives - if a drive fails it can be very costly to recover data.

The problem I have now is that my 1TB external HDD isn't enough for a full backup, even with the highest compression. Is there an easy way to clear my 500GB one?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Dylzan. If you want to clear everything from the drive, why don't you just format it? Here's how to do that: How to partition and format a hard drive on Windows (8, 7, Vista, XP) and Mac OSX
I'd recommend that you also download the manufacturer's diagnostic tool after that and test the drive, so that you make sure it's OK before you put any important data on it.
Other than that, I agree with @Mattios on the storage options, it all depends on how much space you think you're going to need.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD