Good advice in here to start with what you have.
My simple approach, a probably common one, is:
- all programms installed on C:
- all samples/instrument content placed on another drive
- seperate drives for projects
If C: is an SSD or M.2-Sata (something quick) of appropriate size (500 GB or more), it shouldn’t be a problem to have samples & instrument content there (also depends on your VSTi, some have a huge library).
For projects, I’m using 7200 rpm HDDs, fast enough to run hundreds of audio tracks @ 44.1/24 bit (I hardly go above that). If SSDs were even cheaper, I’d replace the HDDs but it’s not necessary for working smooth.
My current configuration is…
- 1 TB M.2 for system
- 2 TB M.2 with 2 partitions, one for all sample/instrument content, one for projects
- 4 TB HDD with 4 partitions of 1 TB for projects
- another 4 TB HDD with 4 partitions of 1 TB for backups
- relatively cheap but huge external drives (4 or 5 TB) again for backups/parking of files
The second M.2 is just luxury I bought when I saw, those things were cheap and my mobo offered another socket for it. Since I have it, there hasn’t been any sort of performance boost, it’s just nice to have.
The internal backup HDD is also just luxury. I enjoy the speed of copying files with all discs inside the computer vs. just backing up to external drives, which takes a while longer. But we’re not talking about hours here.
So, to have it all nicely organized, an SSD as system/samples plus a HDD for projects plus an external backup drive looks like a straightforward config.