Sagpat30

@Sagpat30
 
They way you got it setup should be enough exhaust area is = exhaust fan for airflow, and you've got enough exhaust area at the back, so like @emosun if u're temps are fine and you're satisfied with the noise, it's not worth the effort to do major changes. 
 
However, there's an easy to trick to do, to test, to get rid of more GPU heat, remove a few additional PCI-E cover at the back. At least one above the gpu, and 2 below the gpu (these 3 should be enough to test it).
 
And then just see if u have lower temps, and if the GPU hot pocket dissipates a bit.
 
Pc cooling is extremely complicated to get to perfection (fluid dynamics is hard and counter-intuitive), but I completely agree with you it's not complicated to get to "good enough" and that's with air / water / on the cheap, less is more. U can get by with such a simple and cheap setup, most of the complication and cost is due to ARGB/Aesthetics and marketing, so much of it wrong or similar/worse than another option xD

Thanks for the help guys

I don't see why not, as long as the data is not on the same OS drive you plan on reinstalling Windows on, as Windows will format this drive before installation. 
 
Yes.

Id probalby get a HBA and use software raid here.
 
But you can normally make a single disk volume to use it on its own.

You are on the right track for backups. Using a bare 3.5" internal type HDD in a hot swap bay for backups is an excellent idea. I used to do that until I abandoned HDDs for SSDs.
 
Pulling the drive out when not updating the backup is also an excellent practice. However, i do not recommend just letting set in the hot swap bay even though it has been disconnected by pulling it out a bit. it would be much better to stash it in a drawer or on a shelf somewhere away from the computer.
 
For a drive to be a backup drive, it must be kept disconnected from the computer, powered down, and stored away from the computer except while updating the backup. Budget permitting, I also recommend using two backup drives: one kept onsite and the other one kept offsite. The onsite and offsite backup drives should br swapped as often as is practcal to keep the offsite drive as up to date as possible. 
 
Now is a good time to buy backup drive because of the Cyber Monday sales tomorrow. Again, budget permitting, it would be a good idea to replace the aging drive, maybe even upgrading the capacity.

I saw some really good deals on Synology NASes for right around $100. Pair it with a cheap HDD, install CloudStation Drive or CloudStation Backup on your PC, then put the NAS in a closet somewhere, now connect to your NAS and enjoy the awesomeness that is Synology.

Congratulations! You understand something that most people have problems grasping.
 
Setting totally bare is fine as long as you put them in an antistatic sleeve and they aren't subject to being knocked about. However, you can find fairly inexpensive antistatic sleeves if you shop around.
 
I used to keep my 3.5" HDDs in antistatic sleeves loose in a drawer (I still store my spare and outgrown SSDs that way) but taking them out of the sleeves, then putting them back in was a bit of a pain in the neck so I bought an antistatic foam "egg crate" ("pigeon hole" would be another term) that fit in a large drawer so the drives were cushioned and easily accessable without having to horse around with antistatic sleeves.
 
I couldn't find anything like that for 2.5" drives when I went to all SSDs so I made my own egg crates from high density antistatic foam (that stuff was both expensive and hard to find) that fit inside a small Pelican case I used for transporting the backup SSDs, my safe deposit box, and in a drawer at home.The Pelican case and foam cost me a pretty penny but the convenience was SO worth it.

Have a look on ebay or similar for older HP Microservers. The older ones with AMD CPUs are very cheap, at least where I am. These are small units with 4 drive bays and could make for a very low cost file server. I used to use one for my cold backups. I'd leave it in a disconencted/unpowered state when not in use. When I want to backup, I connect it up (power and ethernet cables), turn it on, run whatever backups I want, then turn it off and disconnect again. I still do that now, but with a bigger system as I outgrew 4 drive bays.

Would buying the biggest hdd I can and just running it like "cold storage" be a good idea? I can deal with manually backing up stuff, and my PC has hotswap HDD bays so I could plug in and disconnect very quickly
 
(It's a Corsair 900D)

best bet would be to get a used 980ti or 1070 since they are effectively the same in terms of gaming performance. SLI is not recommended as many games dont support it outright, or support it properly so scaling is always a problem and introduces a whole host of other scenarios and problems at times.