I'm planning a new computer and setup, and I'm unsure whether to buy both a 2TB and a 4TB SSD. My idea is to use the 2TB drive for the operating system and games, then use the 4TB drive for everything else. I'm also trying to save money, so I'm wondering whether having two drives is worthwhile now or if I should start with one and add more storage later.
3 Answers
Using a 2TB drive for the operating system and frequently played games, with a 4TB drive for a larger game library and other files, is a perfectly sensible layout if you can afford it. Games are getting very large, so extra space can be convenient. That said, you could also start with the 2TB drive and reuse it as secondary storage if you later replace it with a larger drive.
Don’t treat having two SSDs as a backup strategy by itself. If both drives are in the same computer, hardware failure, theft, fire, or another disaster could affect both. Keep important files backed up on a separate local device and, ideally, an off-site or cloud backup. For a budget-conscious build, I’d start with the capacity you currently need and add the 4TB drive later if your storage fills up.
A second SSD is worth buying if you actually need the extra space, want a separate backup, or have workloads that benefit from reading and writing to different drives at the same time. Otherwise, modern NVMe drives are already very fast, so there’s no major performance advantage just from having two. You can always leave the extra M.2 slot empty and add a drive later.
Exactly—there’s no need to fill every slot during the initial build. Buy storage based on what you’ll use, not just because the slot is available.