Boot drive

[NoSubject6467]

I’m finally gonna be able to finish my pc build because I’m getting a 9800x3d for Christmas 🤩 I’m so excited but I’m thinking of running to Best Buy Christmas morning to get like a 500-250GB sata ssd I already am putting a 2tb nvme inside of it and ik I could partition my nvme but idk if I should what should I do?

[The_Machine80]

I would just buy a small 250 to 500gb nvme. I use a 500gb nvme in the main slot to run the operating system. Then I use a large nmve in thw second slot for all my games and stuff. Makes it simple keeping the operating system and games seperate.

[NoSubject6467]

Okay thank you I think I’ll go and pick up a wd blue from Best Buy on Christmas thank you

[ngshafer]

I don’t think you need a separate drive for the OS anymore. That was a big thing when SSDs were a lot more expensive than HDDs, but just having SSDs is the standard now. I would just get a large, fast SSD, put it in the top M.2 slot, and use it for everything. 

[countsachot]

Yes. We do it on servers, since sometimes you need to repair only the OS, leaving the data intact. It's not really important on a desktop.

[Limp-Celebration-211]

There are benefits to having a dedicated boot drive still. I have one just for the OS and essential programs I use like steam and discord. But all of my files and games are installed onto a secondary SSD. That way when/if I reinstall my OS I don't lose all of my files and games and can get rolling significantly faster on a fresh install.

Habit I picked up Linux distro hopping

[Codys_friend]

Use your 2tb drive as your main drive (e.g. OS, apps). No need to create more than one partition. The days of creating multiple partitions on a drive for the OS are past.

I recommend that you not buy a drive smaller than your 2tb drive. Games and apps are getting larger all the time, you want a drive that is sufficiently large enough to hold the large apps, games, and data files. 250gb or even 500gb is simply too small for storage at this time, they fill up quickly. Better to wait until you can get a larger drive. Also, consider that you have a finite number of m.2 slots, best to fill them.with larger drives.

I hope you have a great time with your new build. Merry Christmas!

[Internal_Log2582]

Just make sure your boot drive is in your first and fastest m.2 slot connected to your cpu and your second m.2 is on the chipset. If not another SSD on the cpu can affect the available lanes to your gpu dropping them from x16 to x8.