Sorry for the stupid title.. Two SSD of nearly equal speed, one 2TB and one 4TB.. Which one would you use as your primary drive? 2TB? Other details: No other details! I asked mostly out of curiosity! Let's say for a PC that is more for work than for "fun".
If you have a choice, your main drive should be the smallest as it should contain minimal files that are only necessary for operation and has the highest probability of failure due to the majority of writes and rewrites made to that drive.
Personally, I would get a NVMe (2TB) for the system drive C:, and run those SSD's as work and storage drives respectively... The NVMe's are wicked fast as system drives because you're booting from what amounts to really fast RAM. The 2TB is more than enough as a system drive long as you manage your data well and keep all big data items pointed/linked to your 4TB storage device.
Doesn't really matter that much. I would look into the thermals, though. The C drive usually stays "hotter" than other drives, since it's doing I/O often. If you're going to do a lot of I/O, I would try to split the workload between drives. In that case, I would just keep the 4tb as the secondary since that gives you more leeway to use it without getting bottlenecked by the system itself.
Personally i just changed my 2tb nvme samsung drive for a 4tb Nvme main drive i have 6 samsung 870 ssd's which i use for kontakt libraries,vst libraries ect. With nvme drive just check your mobo because the newer ones run 5 instead of 4 so getting a new faster drive will still be fast but it will be limited to the mobo. My pcie nvme drives are pcie 5 samsung 9100 pros but my mobo only does pcie 4 i will get a new new mobo in the future but in the moment it runs great. If you cant do pcie the ssd are the next best thing. Yes main drive is just supposed to be for main files but some vst automatically install to it and most times i keep them on my main i dont like linked or short cutting files but libraries with installers i install them on 2 samsung 4tb ssd drives and kontakt has its own saumsung 4tb ssd. Last edited: Aug 19, 2025 at 12:53 PM
honestly, it really doesn't matter any more. In the days of spinning platters, the benefit of having 2 drives was to avoid random reads on a single drive scattered across platters. You would want your system drive requests separate from your data so the 'needle' wouldn't have to jump across the drive between duties. 1 system, 1 or more data drives. With SSDs and no moving parts, the access times are now negligible.
This was definitely the case for HDDs but the main advantages of going with the larger drive as a system drive will mainly come down to convenience, and with it having more NAND cells it will last much longer than the smaller drive under the same working conditions. Last edited: Aug 19, 2025 at 1:26 PM
The smaller drive than C:/ for the operating system and DAW, plugins, and software! Please never store personal data on C:/; if it gets hacked, the hackers will also have your private data. The less data on C:/, the faster your PC boots, the faster your DAW will run. The larger drive for D:/ for movies, music, and personal data.
Well @dylan63819, from the criminals who want your data and money, in short it is called computer crime. Backup backup and another backup: Back up your entire C:/ hard drive to the larger D:/ hard drive using reliable backup software. This way, you can restore your PC using an emergency disc in the event of a virus, Trojan, or ransomware infection. Last edited: Aug 19, 2025 at 9:28 AM
My configuration: 1 x 500GB SSD for the system - 1 x 4TB SSD - 1 x 2TB SSD - for libraries and samples
Paranoia isn't my thing. The notebook i've been using for 14 years for banking and online transactions is a 2011 HP with Windows 7, no antivirus, and no updates. Only an idiot could have the problems you described above.
What do you think if you got hacked the hackers only have access to your c:\ drive lol they have access to your whole system
it's not stupid question at all, are both SSD same? if not, then 1st priority would be use SSD with its own DRAM for system (cheaper SSDs don't have it at all) 2nd priority would be use SSD with higher capacity of its own DRAM for system (usually 2TB have 2GB and 4TB have 4GB) 3rd priority would be use SSD with TLC (not QLC) for system 4th priority would be use SSD with newer PCIe spec for system
well frankly that's a contradictory statement, because smaller SSD will have fewer blocks in total to write to, which precisely is what makes it wear out and die faster
Also, it's easier to make a backup. It's never a bad idea to have a backup of your main OS, especially on NVMe/SSD. Your cat could piss on it if you keep the pc open, for instance.
