Thoughts about using 7 drives?

[LukaKitty]

So I have been wondering for a while when it comes to storage.

 

 

Since I use my computer for different things, I've set my computer up to have 7 drives connected at all times. I try to not interfere another drive when it's in use, so I can then use another drive without worry. Some may have chosen to set up a RAID config, some might not. So this is the way I've done it, and here at my drives, and how I use them:

 

Drive C: OS, drivers, frequently used software (Samsung 960 EVO - 250GB M.2)

Drive D: CD/DVD burning/reading, driver install (Asus DRW-24D3ST - SATA)

Drive E: Not-so-heavy/needy games (Western Digital WD20EARS - 2TB SATA HDD)

Drive F: Heavy/needy games like GTA V (Samsung 850 EVO - 500GB SATA SSD)

Drive G: Media like music, images, videos (Toshiba HDWD110 - 1TB SATA HDD)

Drive H: Less often used software, assets (Kingston V300 SSDnow - 240GB SATA SSD)

Drive I: Downloads, backup, video editing files (Seagate ST1000DM003 - 1TB SATA HDD)

 

 

Just to make a few things clear:

Nvidia's game capture software 'GeForce Shadowplay' is set to save recordings to drive F, the media drive. To avoid frame stutters and alike, GeForce Shadowplay needs it's own drive. And I've tried to record to a SSD, but didn't help much.

Once in a while, I download many files at once, so I thought using a drive almost just for that would be a good idea, as downloading several things at once fragments the drive. When I got the files downloaded, I store them on another drive, then defrag the download drive, delete the downloaded files from that drive, and I'm good to go as far as I know. I also store backups and video editing files there, so keeping it tidy is nice.

 

By the way, ignore drive X in the picture there. It's a USB thumb drive that doesn't sit in the computer all the time. Only drive C, D, E, F, G, H, and I is in the computer the whole time.

 

 

Back to the point I wanted.

What do you guys think of this setup? Is it too much, too messy, or is it okay in how I've set everything up?

[Electronics Wizardy]

If it works for you, its good.

 

One thing you can do if you have another drive is use snapraid. That would let you keep all the drives like this, and have a raid like radiancy if you delete a file on accident or lose a drive.

[LukaKitty]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If it works for you, its good.

 

One thing you can do if you have another drive is use snapraid. That would let you keep all the drives like this, and have a raid like radiancy if you delete a file on accident or lose a drive.

Well, I can't fit any further drives into my system. The three 3.5" and two 2.5" drive slots are all occupied. My motherboard has two M.2 drive slots, but according to PcPartPicker, using one M.2 drive disables one SATA port, and using two M.2 drives disables 4 SATA ports, and I've only got 8 of them, and 6 of the ports are in use.

 

I don't know if this is true, but attempting to get a M.2 drive with tons of space is rather expensive I'm sure. And that M.2 slot is the only available slot I have.

 

Sure, I can use a external drive, and I do have one, but... it's only got 120GB's of storage. Been thinking about getting a 3TB 2.5" drive to fit into it, but I am not too sure about it.

 

 

The main problem of all this lies in the available cases there are out there on the market. Trying to find a case that has two 140MM fan slots on the front, two 5.25" optical drive bay slots, at least three 3.5" drive bays, at least two 2.5" drive bays, and a fan on the bottom of the case isn't easy. Besides, kinda want a side window too. ^^;

[Mooshi]

Why not grab an 8TB drive?

[LukaKitty]

2 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Why not grab an 8TB drive?

Using a 8TB drive for my not-so-heavy/needy games, media files, or download files sounds a bit silly in my opinion. Besides, ain't got any more available 3.5" drive bays in my case. And both of my optical drive bays are in use as well, so no hot-swap or something like that.

[EunSoo]

Do whatever floats your boat. If I were doing something like this, I'd just get two or three large drives (Maybe one SSD and 2 HDDs) and partition them into those 7 categories. OS, Heavily used programs and games in their respective partitions on the SSD. And then whatever combination of the other partitions split up between the two hard drives in a way that makes sense the most to you.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Sombra

[Mooshi]

4 minutes ago, Crinklekitty said:

Using a 8TB drive for my not-so-heavy/needy games, media files, or download files sounds a bit silly in my opinion. Besides, ain't got any more available 3.5" drive bays in my case. And both of my optical drive bays are in use as well, so no hot-swap or something like that.

It was less add in a giant HDD and more replace smaller drives.

[LukaKitty]

8 minutes ago, Sombra said:

Do whatever floats your boat. If I were doing something like this, I'd just get two or three large drives (Maybe one SSD and 2 HDDs) and partition them into those 7 categories. OS, Heavily used programs and games in their respective partitions on the SSD. And then whatever combination of the other partitions split up between the two hard drives in a way that makes sense the most to you.

I've had the idea of partitioning my drives too, but... it isn't the greatest idea if once drive suddenly fails or corrupts itself. And that's already happened twice. Last time was with my 2TB drive where I keep my not-so-heavy/needy games on, resulting a loss of about 438GB's of storage. Had to wipe the entire drive to make it usable again.

 

The time before that is when I used the Kingson SSDNow V300 drive as my OS drive and got a upgrade to something else. Had to wipe it as well.

[LukaKitty]

10 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

It was less add in a giant HDD and more replace smaller drives.

I haven't even used half of the total amount of space I have. Last time I checked, I have about 4.48TB of storage in total, and I've used almost 1.3TB in total. Not to mention I haven't even used half the space on any of the HDD's connected.