Help on storage for me pc

beachBOYken

beachBOYken

beachBOYken

Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2007
Posts
13,738
Location
London
Hi

I have a Crucial T500 2tb in my pc that’s my only drive so it has windows on it along with some games.

Was thinking about getting another drive just for windows, I’m wondering what size is recommended just for windows and few apps maybe. Any recommendations please?

And how I go about switching the drives.
Would I take the 2tb drive out completely and start a fresh new windows install and then insert the 2tb and reformat it, just wondering best way to do it.

Thanks
 
I've just checked file explorer, and there is 101GB of storage in use on my OS drive. That 101GB includes Win 11 and all its gumpf, most of the various launchers like steam, and a couple of other programs. I expect there's a bunch of stuff on there that needs deleting from Windows updates which is taking up space.

I've got all my games and personal files on a separate drive.

With this information, I would be satisfied buying anything from 256GB upwards for the OS if I were buying now with how prices are.
Previously prices were reasonable so buying larger made sense, especially when the middle ground like a 1TB drive worked out as the best price per TB.

If you have many, many large programmes then you may want to go to 500GB.

According to the MS website a fresh Windows 11 install only requires a 64GB or larger storage device.

EDIT - going to System > Settings > Storage shows that my Windows 11 install is around 54GB. My installed Apps are taking up the rest of the space (minus 600MB of temp files).
Perhaps you could check there and it will give you an idea of what your own storage needs by breaking down what you have installed. Click 'Show more categories' for a more detailed breakdown of what is taking up your storage space.

EDIT 2 - one last edit, it isn't necessary to have the games and personal files on a separate drive if you don't want to. I do it because buying a separate drive was cheap in the past and it meant less hassle with reinstalling windows. Prior to SSDs it had a purpose, but even then it wasn't necessary.
I do like having all my stuff organised on separate drives tho. it tickles me the right way :p
 
Last edited:
Distracted said:
I've just checked file explorer, and there is 101GB of storage in use on my OS drive. That 101GB includes Win 11 and all its gumpf, most of the various launchers like steam, and a couple of other programs. I expect there's a bunch of stuff on there that needs deleting from Windows updates which is taking up space.

I've got all my games and personal files on a separate drive.

With this information, I would be satisfied buying anything from 256GB upwards for the OS if I were buying now with how prices are.
Previously prices were reasonable so buying larger made sense, especially when the middle ground like a 1TB drive worked out as the best price per TB.

If you have many, many large programmes then you may want to go to 500GB.

According to the MS website a fresh Windows 11 install only requires a 64GB or larger storage device.

EDIT - going to System > Settings > Storage shows that my Windows 11 install is around 54GB. My installed Apps are taking up the rest of the space (minus 600MB of temp files).
Perhaps you could check there and it will give you an idea of what your own storage needs by breaking down what you have installed. Click 'Show more categories' for a more detailed breakdown of what is taking up your storage space.

EDIT 2 - one last edit, it isn't necessary to have the games and personal files on a separate drive if you don't want to. I do it because buying a separate drive was cheap in the past and it meant less hassle with reinstalling windows. Prior to SSDs it had a purpose, but even then it wasn't necessary.
I do like having all my stuff organised on separate drives tho. it tickles me the right way :p
Click to expand...

I just want to do it as I’m a bit ocd with organising as well :D

I may see if I can find a 1tb or 500gb as I use the Xbox app a lot and msfs24 which I think likes to use the primary C: drive no matter what and I have quite a lot of addons as well.

Any suggestions on. 500gb/1tb m2 drive?

My MB has its own heatsinks so don’t need one to have its own.
 
beachBOYken said:
Was thinking about getting another drive just for windows, I’m wondering what size is recommended just for windows and few apps maybe.
Click to expand...
nowadays it's a bit pointless to split the drive and get a smaller drive solely for a windows partition
this was done back in the day of spinning hard drives where the first partition was on the outer edges of the drive and conferred a speed advantage, which clearly is no longer the case

the only caveat to this is if you reinstall windows frequently, in which case having a separate partition for other media would be convenient

personally, i wouldn't bother, but it's your money, just be aware that you'd be doing this for not a lot of gain
 
What is the driver for wanting a dedicated OS drive?

For transfer, you could image the current drive onto the new one. Acronis would do this pretty easily.
 
aaronyuri said:
What is the driver for wanting a dedicated OS drive?

For transfer, you could image the current drive onto the new one. Acronis would do this pretty easily.
Click to expand...

As explained above really, and more for the the case of ever having to reinstall windows, but I think I will take the advice above and just leave as it with my 2tb, still got plenty of storage on it.
What I think I will do is just get an another drive in the future if I ever get low on storage on my main drive.
 
Last edited:
tamzzy said:
hahaha damn windows 11. M$ vibecoding :(
Click to expand...

Windows update really does suck, was updating my other laptop the other day and 2 updates hanged at about 94% installed, gave up restarted, then it hanged again saying please wait updating.
Gave up turned laptop off and on and luckily it booted fine.
It’s crazy to think how long windows has been around yet the update side of things is really hit and miss at times.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom