Help with drives in Windows 10
Help with drives in Windows 10
I’m trying to figure this out, but I’m a bit puzzled. I just purchased this refurbished desktop, and there are a few points that are a bit unclear. It’s a device with the name DESKTOP-QAAM89P. The processor is an Intel® Core™ i5-4570 at 3.20GHz, with 32 GB of RAM installed. The device ID is D8115B42-AC23-44F0-81FE-073EA940AB42 and the product ID is 00330-50000-00000-AAOEM. It runs a 64-bit operating system on an x64-based processor.
I’m using Windows 10 Pro, mostly for music production with many plugins and programs. The add-on description mentioned: Lenovo RGB Gaming PC Desktop Computer - Intel Quad I5 up to 3.6GHz, GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6G GDDR6, 32GB memory, 256GB SSD plus 3TB storage. It seems to be performing better than my previous PC, except for this one concern. The default setting is usually the C: drive, which only has 256GB space. Drive D: has about 3TB. I’m wondering why someone would design something like this. Could it be possible to reconfigure or re-route the D: drive as the primary program drive? My C: drive is almost full and I might need more space soon. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Applications usually use the C drive by default.
As expected.
In general, these applications don’t occupy much room.
The other items will be what end up using your storage.
Your plugins should definitely fit on another drive. Just choose that option when installing.
Don’t attempt to move everything elsewhere. It could cause problems.
Your music files and any personal data are safe to keep in another place.
Even though it isn't huge by current norms, a 256GB Windows storage on C: remains typical for older computers. I still own several machines with just a 120GB Windows drive on C:—more than sufficient for Windows 10 Pro and all the software I wish to install.
Rather than keeping everything in my User Profile on C: (Documents, Photos, Videos, etc.), I store these files on larger hard disks that offer much more space. This approach ensures that if my Windows drive encounters serious issues, I won’t have to attempt recovery from C: before completely erasing it and reinstalling Windows. Of course, I’m aware you could try an in-place Windows reinstall (hoping it preserves your files), but there are other tools available.
My setup includes a 256GB Windows boot drive and a 3TB data drive—exactly how I prefer everything organized. If you truly need a bigger C: space, consider purchasing a 4TB SATA SSD and cloning my current 256GB Windows drive onto it. While many recommend 1TB or 2TB M.2 NVMe Gen.4 drives for Windows C:, this is mainly due to the limitations of older SSDs with fewer memory channels, resulting in slower read/write speeds. Given that my computer is likely too outdated for a M.2 NVMe drive, the most practical upgrade would be replacing the existing 256GB drive with a larger SATA SSD.
TLDR: Keep Windows and all your programs/apps on the boot drive C:. Store personal files on the larger 3TB hard disk.
Thank you bnoth! Usually I save everything to the bigger D: drive, but some pluggins need larger programs and don’t work with a different drive. It looks like they’re not compatible. I’m thinking about getting a clone drive, but for now I managed to reroute most of them to D: through Explorer. Thanks again!