Alienware 18 Hard drives question

[Jayden Millan]

Hi! I just bought a very fast SSD. I want to add it to my 18 and move windows to it. However, the original drive I have installed is very slow. Will it be safe to keep both drives running like that? Will there be bottlenecking? I just plan to leave games in the slow drive and Windows to the fast drive. Is that a good idea?. Thanks

 

[Brian Boru]

Welcome to the forum

What size are the SSD and HDD?

Depending on that, you may have better options.

 

[Jayden Millan]

Hi!. The SSD and HDD are 2.5 inches.

 

[Colif]

Hi!. The SSD and HDD are 2.5 inches.

He means How much capacity do they have?

most games don't care about the speed of the drive they are on so using a hdd for game storage works. Some new games like Starfield work better off SSD.

 

[Brian Boru]

2.5 inches

Ah, sorry I wasn't clear

Like Colif indicated, how many Gigabytes or Terabytes capacity do they have?

 

[Jayden Millan]

Ah, sorry I wasn't clear

Like Colif indicated, how many Gigabytes or Terabytes capacity do they have?

Each drive has 1TB

 

[Brian Boru]

I just plan to leave games in the slow drive and Windows to the fast drive. Is that a good idea?

Not in general. Games will launch faster from SSD, and also load info faster from SSD during play—particularly noticeable with data like textures, and maybe other stuff, I'm not too familiar with the finer points.

1TB is way too much for Windows, you'll be wasting most of your best drive if that's all you put on there. I recommend:

♣ Install Windows and all other software you want to use on the SSD and see how much space it consumes—should be way less than 200GB unless you have reams of big software.

♦ Partition the SSD, leaving say 200GB for the C: Windows drive, and make the rest—750+GB—into a new drive D, where you'll install the game(s) you're currently playing.

♥ Keep the 1TB HDD for personal data—your documents, images etc—and maybe installs of other games. There's a way to swap Steam game installs between drives, which someone else can explain if you're interested.

 

[Colif]

Really is no need to partition it. Pointless really. still need to reinstall it all if windows dies. Easier to just leave it as one.

just because windows is on partition doesn't mean you can't use it for other things too. I only have 1* partition on my 1tb nvme, i just installed a few games along side it... still have 480gb free. I don't feel like its wasted space as I have um... 5tb free still. I don't need it... I prefer to keep C with more space than I need.

last PC windows was on a 250gb ssd, the only thing I used it for. I had 187gb free most of the time. All my data lives on the other drives. Windows is expendable.

Space isn't expensive, if you want more just buy it.

*actually 4 partitions but 3 are hidden and used by windows. And don't add up to a lot of space. Unallocated of 93gb for over provisioning means Nvme never likely to wear out.

 

[Brian Boru]

no need to partition it. Pointless really

Depends on personal usage and preference. I don't want to have to setup Windows and all my programs again if something crashes C: drive, so I image my disk every month before the MS 2nd-Tuesday Update.

The image, with verification afterwards, takes ~30 minutes for the 170-180 GB usually in my C: drive—unlike you, I have a lot of software, much with custom settings. If I had more on C: drive, say another 500GB of games, the image would be ~2 hours—which would be a bigger disincentive to not bother, since it wouldn't handily fit in with a short absence for say dinner.

The image would also of course be 4 times bigger—so ~400-450GB—and therefore far less attractive to store on another physical disk, which may already have quite a lot of data on it, including of course large normal file backups of working data.

A small C: partition also makes cloning the drive easier, so you can always have a spare C: sitting there ready to pop in if anything happens the working one. This is especially useful when building a PC, or during a major OS upgrade.

So it's not pointless, but of course not necessary either. Like all security practices, it's all related to what the pain of loss would be.

Windows is expendable

Not for me, and especially not all the software customized settings—that would take a lot longer to replicate than reinstalling Windows.

But for a PC used only for gaming, then yes I agree. Windows and games can be easily reinstalled if one has decent internet speed.

@Jayden Millan All above isn't relevant for your question—the answer remains that you should default to having your current game(s) on your fast drive

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

FWIW I have installed every game I'm playing on an SSD since 2012. Even if its just load times that are faster its worth it.

 

[Jayden Millan]

Depends on personal usage and preference. I don't want to have to setup Windows and all my programs again if something crashes C: drive, so I image my disk every month before the MS 2nd-Tuesday Update.

The image, with verification afterwards, takes ~30 minutes for the 170-180 GB usually in my C: drive—unlike you, I have a lot of software, much with custom settings. If I had more on C: drive, say another 500GB of games, the image would be ~2 hours—which would be a bigger disincentive to not bother, since it wouldn't handily fit in with a short absence for say dinner.

The image would also of course be 4 times bigger—so ~400-450GB—and therefore far less attractive to store on another physical disk, which may already have quite a lot of data on it, including of course large normal file backups of working data.

A small C: partition also makes cloning the drive easier, so you can always have a spare C: sitting there ready to pop in if anything happens the working one. This is especially useful when building a PC, or during a major OS upgrade.

So it's not pointless, but of course not necessary either. Like all security practices, it's all related to what the pain of loss would be.



Not for me, and especially not all the software customized settings—that would take a lot longer to replicate than reinstalling Windows.

But for a PC used only for gaming, then yes I agree. Windows and games can be easily reinstalled if one has decent internet speed.

@Jayden Millan All above isn't relevant for your question—the answer remains that you should default to having your current game(s) on your fast drive

But having installed a very slow HDD with a fast SDD causes no problems? Is it ok to run the laptop like that?

 

[Brian Boru]

But having installed a very slow HDD with a fast SDD causes no problems? Is it ok to run the laptop like that?

Absolutely fine, no problems at all

 

[Jayden Millan]

Absolutely fine, no problems at all

Thanks for your time