Hard Drive & Solid State Question

Hello,

I was wondering, what SSD/HDD setup, everyone here uses (home PCs)? I am currently looking to migrate, from a HDD to an SSD?

I am considering, a 1TB SSD (system & programs), and a 2TB HDD for photos. Or, a 2TB SSD for everything, and a 2TB for back up purposes.

Thanks!

Conversation 13 comments

  • navarac

    08 March, 2021 - 10:01 am

    <p>In a gaming rig: 1TB NVMe for OS and progs, 2x1TB SSD's for data backup and 2 x external 3TB HDDs for Image backups of all machines, (Windows Gaming Rig, Linux Desktop PC with 1TB SSD and Surface Pro 3 with Linux installed). </p><p>After using an NVMe drive for the OS and progs, everything else seems so slow! Hope that helps.</p>

  • anoldamigauser

    Premium Member
    08 March, 2021 - 10:01 am

    <p>Unless you have a lot of programs, I think the SSD could be sized down to 512GB, but it is your money, and more is always better. For backup, I prefer to have a bit more space than the sum of the disks I intend to back up, so I would go bigger there, but that is just me. </p>

  • wunderbar

    Premium Member
    08 March, 2021 - 11:23 am

    <p>I always keep Windows on a separate drive from data on desktop computers. Makes it way easier to blow Windows up should I ever need to.</p><p><br></p><p>Also means a rapid unplanned disassembly of my windows install doesn't take down data either.</p>

  • darkgrayknight

    Premium Member
    08 March, 2021 - 12:06 pm

    <p>I like having NVMe M.2 Samsung EVO Plus 1TB (or 500GB if you don't install a lot of programs/games) for the OS and programs. It is very fast. I'm not sure you can just upgrade to NVMe, unless your motherboard has a M.2 slot available. Anything that you are actively working on (photos/video/etc.) that could use the speed is nice on the SSD, but if you are mostly just storing it, the cheaper large drives make more sense for storage. If you don't have a SSD yet, any of them will be a pretty major improvement.</p>

  • illuminated

    08 March, 2021 - 1:22 pm

    <p>2TB system SSD, 2TB photo SSD and 16 TB HDD for backups and other big stuff.</p><p>I started with 512 GB system SSD but it was just too small. I had too much stuff that needed space but was easily replaceable like Adobe Lightroom caches, flight sims with data, steam installs, development tools and other development-related stuff. </p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    08 March, 2021 - 1:59 pm

    <p>I have 3 512GB SSDs and a 2TB HDD. </p>

  • ericmeetsworld

    Premium Member
    09 March, 2021 - 2:25 pm

    <p>500gb main SSD, 1TB SSD for games, 3TB for photos, 2 TB for other stuff, and a 4TB to back up folders on the 3TB, 2TB and 500gb drives. Mainly, this way as I accumulated these drives over a number of years.</p><p> </p>

  • samp

    09 March, 2021 - 3:25 pm

    <p>Just the simple SSD that comes with the laptop, as well as an large size micro-SD card for important stuff, but mainly cloud storage (Drive)</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    09 March, 2021 - 5:35 pm

    <p>I'm pretty much dedicated to SSDs at this point for running code. On my main system, an Acer Nitro 5, it has a 256GB NVMe SSD and I added a 500GB Samsung EVO SATA SSD. On my Thinkstation, it's a 250GB SATA SSD and two 450GB SATA HDDs. The Thinkpad has a single 250GB SSD. </p><p><br></p><p>There's a couple of other older systems, like an AMD Athlon FX-62 system I've got various 120-250 GB SSDs for boot drives in them and the difference is amazing.</p>

  • polloloco51

    09 March, 2021 - 6:36 pm

    <p>Quick follow up:</p><p>I am considering, either, the 1TB Samsung Evo 870 SSD, or the Samsung 2TB Evo 860. The Samsung 870 QVO 2TB looks good too! </p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Would a 2TB Seagate Baracuda Green HDD, be adequate for storing strictly photos, and editing them via Lightroom? </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">^This is for, a Dell XPS 8700. </span></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • illuminated

      10 March, 2021 - 12:13 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#617322">In reply to polloloco51:</a></em></blockquote><p>Big system SSD is awesome.You can put a big lightroom cache over there. That speeds up viewing and editing immensely. </p><p>For HDD it depends how many photos you have. Lightroom does not need much additional space as it stores editing actions in the database and applies them on the fly. This is the reason why the big fast cache is awesome. </p><p>2TB HDD is tiny in my opinion. Could be enough but I would get a bigger one, </p>

  • red.radar

    Premium Member
    10 March, 2021 - 2:00 pm

    <p>I just kept it simple and ponied up for the biggest NVME SSD I could afford. Usually the stuff that doesn't fit, is not needing daily access so it gets shifted to a NAS. If the situation changes I will shift the data around so I can benefit from faster local access. That doesn't happen too often though. </p>

  • erichk

    Premium Member
    10 March, 2021 - 4:55 pm

    <p>On my main rig, I have a 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD for Windows and primary apps, and a 4 TB hard drive for games and files.</p>

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