new build hard drive question

chili · 18 Aug 2019 at 00:37

Looking to build myself a new gaming rig and i am probably going to get a
FORCE MP510 SERIES 960GB NVME PCIE M.2 SOLID STATE DRIVE

my question is if i have this as my primary drive would you bother to partition it or just leave it as is?

thanks

bremen1874 · 18 Aug 2019 at 00:49

I'd leave it as a single partition.

edscdk · 18 Aug 2019 at 00:54

Second that 1 partition.. And a bottle of gin

chili · 22 Aug 2019 at 15:54

Surely though if you leave it as is you stand to loose a lot more data if it ever fails, got to admit i am one of these people who very rarely do backups of anything

Semple · 22 Aug 2019 at 15:57

chili said:
Surely though if you leave it as is you stand to loose a lot more data if it ever fails, got to admit i am one of these people who very rarely do backups of anything

If it fails, you'll lose both partitions as they're part of the same NVME drive.

The only reason i'd split it is for an OS partition, and then a data partition that works independently of the OS. If you had to reinstall the OS, then it's only that partition that's affected.

Admiral Huddy · 22 Aug 2019 at 15:57

I'm going against the grain here.. I normally have two partitions.. one for OS and Programs and the other for files. I change the physical location of the User folders. I can then backup that partition only to a backup device knowing it backs up all the files I need and nothing I don't.

chili · 22 Aug 2019 at 15:59

Admiral Huddy said:
I'm going against the grain here.. I normally have two partitions.. one for OS and Program and the other for files. I change the physical location of the User folders. I can then backup that partition only to a backup device knowing it all files I need..

i normally have 2 partitions aswell 1 for os the other for everything else the drive i am getting is like 960gb

bremen1874 · 22 Aug 2019 at 16:05

I just run scheduled image backups of the entire drive. The overhead of also including the OS and program files is minimal and I can be back up and working in about 15 minutes if something does go wrong. Having additional partitions is just a faff, so 1990s.

chili · 22 Aug 2019 at 17:38

bremen1874 said:
I just run scheduled image backups of the entire drive. The overhead of also including the OS and program files is minimal and I can be back up and working in about 15 minutes if something does go wrong. Having additional partitions is just a faff, so 1990s.

So what is the most simplest way to do a scheduled backup and what would i need?

bremen1874 · 22 Aug 2019 at 17:47

Download and install the free version of Macrium Reflect.

Configure it to perform scheduled drive image backups.

I have a full backup every Sunday and differential every day in between.

I have an internal mechanical drive that's only used as a backup target and for scratch data that I don't care about. I image both of my SSDs to the mechanical drive and then that syncs with my NAS using Robocopy as a final step in the backup script.

I actually use the paid-for version of Macrium Reflect because amongst other things it allows for email notifications.

pcfarrar · 23 Aug 2019 at 09:24

chili said:
So what is the most simplest way to do a scheduled backup and what would i need?

You could just get Office 365 Personal and let the Onedrive client in Windows 10 do its thing.

bremen1874 · 23 Aug 2019 at 11:27

No need to only do one or the other.

I use OneDrive business and also image my drives every day that the computer is on. They're both automatic and non-intrusive.

There's overlap between them, but they do serve different purposes.

bledd · 24 Aug 2019 at 09:50

I would partition this with 120GB for Windows, the rest for other files. I would pick the second partition for Origin and Steam folders.