I misplaced my storage device.
I misplaced my storage device.
Sorry, this might not be the right spot to share your questions. Thank you for reaching out and giving me a chance. As mentioned, I'm trying to figure out the best storage setup. My new SATA SSD is installed, and I also have two NVMe drives—one for my operating system © and the other (F). I want to keep as much data off the C drive, especially for games and occasional work like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. I'm curious whether adding an OS to the F drive would be a good backup option in case the C drive fails. Should I back up my PC to a USB drive or just use the SSD? Also, do games with launchers or apps like Steam or EA need to be moved to the F drive, or can I run them from the SSD? I'm not sure if this is the best approach for optimizing storage and longevity. Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding anything—I'm happy to clarify further!
The best setup is SSD first, then your operating system and apps, plus the games you’re playing. Mechanical drives are recommended for games you don’t play often, and keeping Steam backups makes managing drives simple. (G isn’t an SSD here—it’s a strange issue that doesn’t show the drive name.) C and S are SSDs, G is USB, and H is an 18TB WD Red Pro. Be aware that some programs fail if not installed on the C drive. Games that aren’t from the Windows Store tend to work fine as long as their installation paths aren’t too deep. Adobe products unfortunately dislike being on the C drive; when you create scratch drives for Photoshop or Premiere, it’s usually best not to use your SSD as the scratch drive. This adds extra stress, so switch to a faster RAM instead. Keep in mind that Windows can use up all available space if you don’t limit the page file. You’ll need to balance that risk against letting the system crash if memory runs out. Yesterday night I left Firefox running, and by morning it had taken up all GPU memory and enough RAM that the video wouldn’t play.
Varying the specifications of your NVMe drives influences your setup. Maintain your operating system on the fastest storage, especially now with larger NVMe options. If your drive size is under 500GB, consider an upgrade. I currently have two 500GB NVMe drives in a RAID0 configuration for booting. I rely on cloud storage for media and documents, while most game clients use the cloud for saves. I also have two SSDs connected via SATA ports—1TB and 2TB—for gaming, testing, and work purposes. Eventually all drives may fail, sometimes sooner than expected, but I won’t worry until it happens. Back up essential files like documents and photos you don’t want to lose; the rest are generally downloadable. Keep your installation USB updated and include a copy of the latest drivers for your system.
C expresses doubts about the 500GB NVMe drive from Kingston, questioning its quality and suitability for primary use despite personal reservations. F shares that their experience with Crucial's 1TB NVMe drive was mainly for gaming, but they switched to a new SSD after running into issues with launchers and program files. G mentions the Samsung EVO 870 1TB SSD encountered similar problems with launchers, suggesting it might be the main drive. F notes occasional memory management issues and considers storage limitations, possibly due to 500GB capacity. Both agree to send another backup USB drive and apologize for any confusion, noting their relative inexperience with PC storage.
I think most of the settings are already disabled at startup, except perhaps Steam. I’ve only tested a few games through the DOS box or command-line tools, but they always showed up as "healthy." I’ll share the results once I run the CrystalDisk and post them for everyone to review.