How do people generally have their storage drives setup?

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

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Hi all, I've just built my first PC in about 13 years and at the moment I've just got a single WD Black SN770 1TB M2 SSD which I've installed Windows 11 to, and I intend to install most of my apps to this drive.

However, this clearly isn't going to be big enough as I start installing games. I was thinking I could get another 1 or 2TB M2 SSD just for game installs. Would that be sensible? Or are there cheaper SSDs that would be better? I don't really know the difference between these tiny M2 drives and the bigger SSDs that I remember using ages ago.

I have a few HDDs from my old PCs, they are 3.5" SATA drives which I assume will still be compatible with my new ASUS B650 TUF motherboard. I was going to put these in and use for general storage of documents and files.

Does that seem like a sensible setup? Or would you recommend something else?

Thanks
 
It does depend on what motherboard you have
How pcie lanes get allocated
Having more than 1 x m2 may disable a couple
Of sata slots

But if there's no issue
Then yes add a second m2 nvme for games
1TB or 2TB depending how many games
The main difference is read and write speed
2.5 sata ssds peak approx 550MBs
Gen 4 m2 approx 7500MBs
But 2.5 sata ssds still have great access times
I find main difference is copying files
Between 2 m2 drives that blows away sata ssds
If prices are roughly equal
No reason not to get the m2 if your board supports it

Assuming enough sata ports
I would shove your old drives into windows storage spaces
It allows mixing hdds,ssds and m2 drives
different size drives with no loss of space
And can be set up with redundancy
If got enough drives
I have all m2 drives and use my old sata ssds
To make storage spaces
 
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Personally I'd avoid putting older SATA SSDs or worse HDDs into a new PC - M.2 is a much better option. Better use IMO for older SATA devices is using an adapter/enclosure and using them for backup purposes.

My current setup is a usually 512GB or 1TB OS drive and 1-2TB additional drive for games, etc.
 
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Unless you got big boring files I can't really see the point in installing Hdds now. I only really use Hdds as another back for family videos and films. As a daily I sadly don't see the point see the point of a hdd for anymore for gaming and excel, they are just to slow and not worth the cost. Just find a decent ssd at a good price :) and make sure anything important is backed up regularly.
 
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Thank you for the suggestions, I think I'll leave the old HDDs out in that case. It did seem a bit wrong to put these old ugly things in my nice new build.

I'll look at getting another SSD for the games.
Mcnumpty2323 said:
It does depend on what motherboard you have
How pcie lanes get allocated
Having more than 1 x m2 may disable a couple
Of sata slots

But if there's no issue
Then yes add a second m2 nvme for games
1TB or 2TB depending how many games
The main difference is read and write speed
2.5 sata ssds peak approx 550MBs
Gen 4 m2 approx 7500MBs
But 2.5 sata ssds still have great access times
I find main difference is copying files
Between 2 m2 drives that blows away sata ssds
If prices are roughly equal
No reason not to get the m2 if your board supports it

Assuming enough sata ports
I would shove your old drives into windows storage spaces
It allows mixing hdds,ssds and m2 drives
different size drives with no loss of space
And can be set up with redundancy
If got enough drives
I have all m2 drives and use my old sata ssds
To make storage spaces
Click to expand...

My motherboard is an Asus b650 TUF, it supports the following:

1 x M.2 2280 PCIe 5.0 x 4
1 x M.2 22110 PCIe 4.0 x 4
1 x M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x 4

I'm assuming I've put the current one into the PCIe 5.0 space. Is it OK having another in one of the PCIe 4.0 spaces?

Edit: Just realised 5.0 is Gen5, which my current M2 drive isn't. I'd probably only get another Gen4 one so should be fine.

Edit: I'm so confused. I was just reading that M2 and NVME are different types of storage drive. But the drive I've bought already, and all the other listings I see usually say M2 and NVME in the product name. I don't really understand this.

Anyway, just ordered a Crucial P3 Pro 2TB for £97, hopefully it works!
 
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ScarySquirrel said:
Thank you for the suggestions, I think I'll leave the old HDDs out in that case. It did seem a bit wrong to put these old ugly things in my nice new build.

I'll look at getting another SSD for the games.


My motherboard is an Asus b650 TUF, it supports the following:

1 x M.2 2280 PCIe 5.0 x 4
1 x M.2 22110 PCIe 4.0 x 4
1 x M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x 4

I'm assuming I've put the current one into the PCIe 5.0 space. Is it OK having another in one of the PCIe 4.0 spaces?

Edit: Just realised 5.0 is Gen5, which my current M2 drive isn't. I'd probably only get another Gen4 one so should be fine.

Edit: I'm so confused. I was just reading that M2 and NVME are different types of storage drive. But the drive I've bought already, and all the other listings I see usually say M2 and NVME in the product name. I don't really understand this.

Anyway, just ordered a Crucial P3 Pro 2TB for £97, hopefully it works!
Click to expand...
It's a bit confusing
M2 is the form factor
But can be sata or nvme protocol
Most are nvme ie the faster protocol
Some motherboard slots can run
Sata or nvme
Some slots only one or the othet
 
My main computer is really a workstation / software dev machine. I still use Western Digital Gold (enterprise) HDD's for data / SQL server / VM's. The reason is those drives are very reliable especially at repeat data writing. Programs however are on WD Black SN850 / WD Blue SN550.
 
ScarySquirrel said:
I was thinking I could get another 1 or 2TB M2 SSD just for game installs. Would that be sensible? Or are there cheaper SSDs that would be better? I don't really know the difference between these tiny M2 drives and the bigger SSDs that I remember using ages ago.
Click to expand...
M.2 drives have all the bits attached to the exposed PCB and draw their power from the motherboard, while the 2.5" SSDs have the bits encased in a plastic or metal box and draw their power from the PSU.

If you look inside a 2.5" SSD, they're almost empty.

You can still get SATA M.2 drives, which are otherwise identical to the 2.5" SATA drives, but the vast majority of M.2 drives are now PCI-E based (using NVME to access).

Buying 2.5" SSDs is not usually sensible anymore because 1. they're slower (since they're limited by SATA, which caps out way below what read/write speeds SSDs can achieve) and 2. there is no cost benefit anymore.
 
I have a 1TB NVME for OS and apps, a 2TB for games and a 2TB SSD for any other stuff (was gonna sell it, but kept it just in case).

Personally, i would not go lower than a 2TB drive for games.
 
I have a 1TB NVME drive but I have it partitioned.

125GB for Windows (nothing else on here part from Windows) and then the rest for games and anything else.

Purely because if I need to re install the OS it does not take all my games with it and all I need to do is re create the shortcuts again.
 
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Personally I have a 1TB WD Black as the C Drive, with Windows and most apps on it, a 2TB WD Blue for games, a legacy 1TB SATA SSD for Music, games overflow and for some other files and a 3TB HDD for Videos, Pictures, etc. Probably a bit overkill for most people and if I had built it this year I'd have used another faster NVME SSD for games, for most people I think 2 drives is the way to go, C:\ dor Windows and Apps and a D:\ for games/storage. Not including external backup disks.
 
M.2 only

1 Boot 512GB
1 Game 1TB

Feels about time to swap to a 2TB M.2

Anything I want to keep handy but not online gets uploaded to a 10TB QNAP NAS.

Having a fast fibre connection means I don't need to store games locally most of the time. Even big games usually only take ~20 mins to re-install.
 
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I think 2.5" Sata ssd still have a place in that the real world performance between them and an nvme is not that noticeable in practice, and you can of course add as many as your board allows, whereas nvmes are limited to the available slots and pci lanes on the mobo. Hdd's however shoudl be relegated to backup only nowadays. I'm planning on building a dedicated backing up PC out of old pc parts and stuffing it with all my old hard drives, such that it will turn itself on on a schedule, do a back up of my main pc, and shut off to save power and run time on the drives.
 
I'm old school. I have done this since I started buying SSD's when they 1st came out (1st one was an 80GB intel jobby, 2nd one was a Crucial M4 which I still have in a draw somewhere) OS & apps on the SSD, files on an HDD. I dont trust my files on an SSD even though I have cloud backup at my disposal.
 
Grimley said:
I'm old school. I have done this since I started buying SSD's when they 1st came out (1st one was an 80GB intel jobby, 2nd one was a Crucial M4 which I still have in a draw somewhere) OS & apps on the SSD, files on an HDD. I dont trust my files on an SSD even though I have cloud backup at my disposal.
Click to expand...
Curious what numbers of failures you have had betwee HDDs and SSDs?

Touch wood I have not had a single SSD failure causing data loss/requiring restore from backup/replace and rebuild parity - probably out of say 30 drives. Versus maybe 5 HDD failures out of say 100.

Very much ballpark figures and obviously not enough data points to really mean much, but no way would I be putting an HDD into anything other than a storage server these days.
 
Thanks for all of the comments.

I ended up buying a Crucial P3 Pro 2TB. I love how easy these are to install. Had a brief panic when it didn't show in Windows, until I realised I had to create a partition on the disk.

Anyway, all sorted and pretty happy with the space I've g ot now.
 
My current desktop is setup as

1TB M.2 for OS
2TB M.2 for Games
2TB Sata SSD for More Games
500GB Sata SSD for Current Media I am consuming

I dont really notice any real world differences between the two games drives when actually playing.
 
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