Best way to set up gaming PC

ChrisUlrich

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What's the best/fastest way to setup a gaming PC with 2 harddrives?

Windows/Programs on main harddrive and then games on second?

I've read a few different things about which way to go for the best/fastest way to do things. But I have a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro and I need a secondary now. I was thinking about grabbing another 1TB Samsung 980 Pro and moving all my games to that drive.
 
Windows OS and main programs on one drive, games on its own dedicated drive. Like others have said, that’s the method I have used for years but tend to have more than just two drives and I would normally divide my content across them all based on their function.

On my current system that I built just a few months ago, I have a total of 5 drives: 2x 2TB PCIE Gen4 M.2s and 3 other SSDs ranging from 256GB up to 4TB.

My OS and main programs are on one of the M.2 drives and all my games are on the second M.2 drive, the fastest drives in my system. My 256GB SSD is dedicated as a Lightroom database drive. My 1TB SSD is used for miscellaneous stuff like backups, archived downloads, etc. My 4TB SSD is used to store all my media files: photos, videos, music, etc. I will eventually replace the 256GB SSD and put another 4TB SSD in there for backups/archives/misc. then dedicate the 1TB SSD for the Lightroom database (256GB keeps getting close to full).
 
What's the best/fastest way to setup a gaming PC with 2 harddrives?

Windows/Programs on main harddrive and then games on second?

I've read a few different things about which way to go for the best/fastest way to do things. But I have a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro and I need a secondary now. I was thinking about grabbing another 1TB Samsung 980 Pro and moving all my games to that drive.
Another YES. You won't need a 1T drive for the OS. A 256 GB would be fine for Win10. C Drive
 
I have a 1TB ssd nvme for Win 10 pro and I also install games on it. I won't let the free space on it go below 300GB. I also have two 1 TB WD Blue SSDs with their own drive letter for data and games. I had them in a RAID config with one drive letter but then just stopped doing that.

You could get a small SSD for Win 10 and then just get a big second drive for everything else. Even app installs.
 
Do you guys know when these M.2 drives start slowing down due to space?

After your posts, I was considering a 512 Samung 980 Pro for my windows drive and then moving the 1TB to nothing but games and hardware monitoring software.

Is it hard to move windows to a different harddrive?
 
For sure use an SSD for windows, its sad for a PC to not have one.
Partition it so there is a good space for games you are currently playing, it will help them load faster.
ie get minimum 500GB, say only 100GB for the OS, I only use 60GB and have 20GB free still.
Use the hard drive as a secondary games area you can either run games from or copy to/from the SSD, and to save OS backups etc. to.
 
For sure use an SSD for windows, its sad for a PC to not have one.
Partition it so there is a good space for games you are currently playing, it will help them load faster.
ie get minimum 500GB, say only 100GB for the OS, I only use 60GB and have 20GB free still.
Use the hard drive as a secondary games area you can either run games from or copy to/from the SSD, and to save OS backups etc. to.
I'm gonna buy another drive. Either the WD 850 or another Samsung 980 Pro.

Just not sure when space becomes too small for a M.2 to run at its best.
 
I put OS and games on one drive.

Personal files on second drive.

What is the advantage of keeping games separate from OS?
 
Less fuckery if you want to backup/restore the OS or re-install.
Does the steam (and other of the sorts) have no issue refinding the games and does not has to reinstall them that way ? If you reinstall a fresh OS ?
 
Does the steam (and other of the sorts) have no issue refinding the games and does not has to reinstall them that way ? If you reinstall a fresh OS ?
You tell steam where you want each game library to be and each game which library it is in. It can be spread over many drives.
 
I have a few drives in my machine, 1TB nvme for OS, programs, and a few games, 1TB SATA SSD for other games I am playing, and a 4TB WD Black 7200rpm for the rest of the games and use it for rotating games from the SSD to.
 
Does the steam (and other of the sorts) have no issue refinding the games and does not has to reinstall them that way ? If you reinstall a fresh OS ?
All but the Xbox client can find game installs and load them back up without downloading. Xbox client is a pile of crap, you will want to use a dedicated drive for that service because you might need to format it if you run into issues and need to reinstall any Xbox Game Pass games.

I just did a fresh install and Ubisoft, Epic, Steam, and Battlenet were all able to discover my previous game installs and load them up.
The files used by the Xbox client are locked so I currently have 200GB of SSD space wasted since I can't delete the folder to get the Client to redownload my games.
Might have to boot Linux and see if it can delete the folders.
Xbox-Live-Folders.jpg
 
All but the Xbox client can find game installs and load them back up without downloading. Xbox client is a pile of crap, you will want to use a dedicated drive for that service because you might need to format it if you run into issues and need to reinstall any Xbox Game Pass games.

I just did a fresh install and Ubisoft, Epic, Steam, and Battlenet were all able to discover my previous game installs and load them up.
The files used by the Xbox client are locked so I currently have 200GB of SSD space wasted since I can't delete the folder to get the Client to redownload my games.
Might have to boot Linux and see if it can delete the folders.
safe mode then take ownership or plug the disk into a windows 7 PC in safe mode and take ownership (actually think it just ignores NTFS security permissions in safe mode on windows 7)

windows 10 can be annoying

i also find this funny 7-zip seems to change security permissions of files and folders when you 7-zip them into a file once its been added to a 7-zip file you should be able to delete the files and folders
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-delete-a-stubborn-folder-in-windows-1825398537

or even better in the comments of that site it seems 7-zip just ignores NTFS security permissions completely

Save yourself a step. You’re on the right track with 7-ZIP, but you don’t need to add it to an archive. Just open 7-ZIP’s explorer and use it to delete the folder. I’ve done it numerous times with folders on servers that are either too long for Windows to delete (happens more than you think) or you just can’t delete.
 
safe mode then take ownership or plug the disk into a windows 7 PC in safe mode and take ownership (actually think it just ignores NTFS security permissions in safe mode on windows 7)

windows 10 can be annoying

i also find this funny 7-zip seems to change security permissions of files and folders when you 7-zip them into a file once its been added to a 7-zip file you should be able to delete the files and folders
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-delete-a-stubborn-folder-in-windows-1825398537

or even better in the comments of that site it seems 7-zip just ignores NTFS security permissions completely
7-zip-no-delete.jpg
 
Can you actually put all games on the secondary drive? It seems like I remember a while back there used to be an issue with some games or game launcher not being on the C drive. I know it's simple enough with Steam as that's what I do with it but I never have paid attention to the other games launchers. To be clear I have two hard drives and one of them is used for Steam games and the other hard drive is used for everything else including my other games.
 
ok it says in use, have you already pointed windows apps to that folder if so point it elsewhere (safe mode should work or a live CD to delete the contents of the folder
I just moved the Steam, EA, and Epic games folder to another drive and formatted the drive and am now moving folders back.
going to use a dedicated drive for the Xbox Live Game Pass games.

moved-game-folders.jpg
 
One fast SSD drive, One large HDD

OS and modern singleplayer games + multiplayer games that benefit from fast load times (e.g. loading in first in Rising Storm 2 means you get first class pick) go on the SSD - hopefully it's at least 1TB. Older singleplayer games, general use apps, multiplayer games that don't benefit from fast load speeds, emulator titles, media, etc. go on the HDD. 8+ Tb at least is ideal.

In most multiplayer games, it makes virtually no difference if you're the fastest to load because you're going to be waiting for the slowest loader, or some other 'ready timer'. On the other hand, some modern open-world games like RDR 2 and Cyberpunk benefit hugely from SSD. Most games not made in the last few years load and play very similarly on a large HDD. Make no mistake, large modern HDDs are way faster than ones we've been used to from the past. They offer significantly more storage than SSD's, and offer no significant performance difference in most instances.

Gathering all of your games on one drive is an arbitrary way to group your programs, particularly when large amounts of SSD storage is expensive. Unless you're streaming a different brand new modern game every day of the year, or otherwise dependent on it for special applications, you might not need as much SSD storage as you think.
 
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I dual boot into Linux, so my primary 2TB nvme is for Windows+Games, and the second 1TB nvme is for Linux.

Since there are only so many nvme slots, I gave up on having separate Windows/Game disks a while ago. I haven't reinstalled Windows though in 5 years, and have had no reason to do so, so I'm not too bothered. I even kept the same Windows install across different builds and it all works perfectly fine. It keeps things pretty simple having it all on one disk.
 
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