Need Advice on a multi HDD gaming setup?

I wanted to ask for a consensus on what the opinion is to setting up a gaming PC or Laptop with 2 drives?

1) Is it best to have 1 HDD for the OS and the 2 HDD for just your games? Or do you guys have a separate OS on each drive?

2) Do games in general write to the OS drive i.e. the registry if you install the game on HDD #2? If that's the case do you have to reinstall the games or do you backup the registry file in the event you need to install the OS on drive 1?

 

1. If the hard drives all have the same speed, then you can put everything on one drive, even multiple OS's. If you have a SSD and a regular drive, most put the OS on the SSD for fast boots. Some then put games on the SSD for fast loading, some put games on a regular hard drive since games can take up so much space, and some put special games on the SSD.

2. If you reinstall the OS, it is best to reinstall all programs. Copying over the registry with a backup can be messy. Games do write a tiny bit to the OS drive.

I am not sure what your concerns are. Hard drives don't normally fail that much to be a concern. If failure is a concern, maybe RAID is an option, or a simple backup.

If you just have multiple regular hard drives and are not sure what to use them for, well that depends. Some put OS and programs on one drive, and data, music, movies, etc on the other. Some use the second drive to backup important data or programs, some set up a RAID as a backup or RAID for better performance.

 

2 drives is very nice to have, but there's no need to have one drive specifically for your OS and nothing else.

I have a 250 GB SSD and a 750 HD. I put my OS and most important files on the SSD and use the standard HD as backup. The 750 GB is coming in quite handy for storing all my video footage I've been capturing lately. Games go on the SSD, which is almost full. When it gets full I'll either clear space or start putting some games on the other HD.

Feel free to just experiment, but there is no real concern to be had about using 2 drives. Just put your most urgent needs on the SSD, if you decide to buy one.

Good luck!

 

With a 2 HDD setup your games function exactly the same if installed on the 2nd HDD as if on the primary. All registry keys, and nessisary OS components will be isntalled just the brunt of the data will be stored on the 2nd HDD.

This can help with your game load times a bit but you probably will not notice, and it saves your primary OS from getting full with games in case you have a smaller HDD and need that space to install programs.

Today some programs like Steam can recover your game if you had to say re-install your OS due to a horrible virus, you would lose your C: data but since the large portion of the game is on your D: you will not have to download it again and pretty much just need to re-register the game and its components.

I have always used a dual HDD setup and if not atleast create 2 partitions on a single drive just so that if an OS install must be done I do not lost what is on that data drive.