Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I won't stop at 50% full.....

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Like your OS and scratch space, you want your applications on your fastest disk, typically C:. Your data (which should be backed up), can reside on slower storage which CAN be spinning disk IF you have a large amount of data, but with SSD prices/TB dropping in half, roughly every year, there’s less and less reason to do so. Unless you want to use your external as a shared drive on the network or move it to other computers (or off-site), there’s not a good reason to resort to externals for a desktop. Internals will be faster, have better cooling, better power, and it eliminates all the interfaces and cables, which add failure points and increase latency.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Me either. The reason you don’t want to run >90% or so with drives that are used for lots of write operations is that on an SSD, every write is preceded by an erase cycle and if you’re erasing the same blocks repeatedly, eventually you can reach the max number or erase cycles for those blocks. If it’s read only data (such as music or an image collection) that’s only written once, but read many times, it doesn’t matter. I have several Internal SSDs for that purpose (music and image storage), and even though they’re near 90% full, they benchmark at their rated speed, just as they did when first provisioned.

I abandoned spinning disk many years ago - everything is on SSD, the longest running of which (Intels), have been in service 24x7x365 for over 8 years.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yes, USB drives have an inherent latency over internals.
But I'll utilize them if I need more space. Easier than opening the desktop to put another drive in the box.
I'm not a speed daemon.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

In addition to the latency of the USB conversion (twice - once on each end), what worries me is power. Unless you can use the power from the host USB port, those cheap Chinese “wall wart” power supplies are often/usually crap. The regulation, noise and reliability isn’t in the league with a good internal supply.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I believe there is a decent power supply in my desktop. The only parasitic "non-system" USB is an 8.5x11 portable flatbed scanner. My dual HDD dock has it's own power supply as well as my 7-slot USB expander.

chikid68 Loc: Tennesse USA

The main reason to do it with the files on a separate drive whether external or another internal drive is that windows prefetch likes to advance load what is on the primary drive which in turn takes up ram and CPU processing power which while it let's things open slightly faster slows down the overall operation of everything.
Also having the files on a separate drive protects against windows corruption when (notice I didn't say if) windows crashes and has to be reinstalled the files on the other drive or drives is safe.
My desktop is set up with two 500 Gb drives mirroring for the os and software and a couple of 8Tb internal drives for storage of my raw files and my finished jpg files are saved on the external array and backed up daily to the cloud.

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

Here is what I have done based on reliability and speed. I think I’m right but am always open to improvement and suggestions.

We all need redundancy for safety and reliability. Speed is essential as well. I have a 1tb SSD for my operating system. I have 4) internal 8 tb SSD on my bus for speed. They are set up as 2) 16 TB drives. I use one for data, and the other for internal backup. If something goes wrong with my main data drive, I have a local backup that I can instantly access. Takes moments to restore small amounts of data. To restore terabytes, takes days from SSD. USB drive restoration would take much longer and if I had to do this from the cloud it would take months. Unfortunately, I am speaking from experience. I have another small SSD for my scratch disk. I do use external USB drives and the cloud as external back ups, but only as additional security in the case of total disaster.

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

His way of thinking perhaps, as it is mine. How much will be lost should it crash & burn, become corrupted. Same as a memory card, the bigger it is, the more you stand to lose should something happen.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

The preference I had for my photographic computer was a 1TB internal drive that is for OS, applications, and some documents. To that computer I have three additional G-Tech drives used for photograph storage, scratch, and backup.

Is that better, who knows. It's just a personal choice. However, it tends toward a von Neumann architecture.
--Bob

djlouden Loc: Ocala, Florida

My latest machine has a 2TB SSD but I do not load any photos on it only the operating system and programs
I have two 4 TB drives installed, one drive is my working drive and the second gets a backup copy every night. A 4 TB NAS and Idrive get backup copies every night as well.

Happy shooting

jgudpns Loc: Pensacola, FL

1 TB SSD C: drive, 4 TB D: and a 4 bay Synology NAS with 8tb drives. Pictures reside on D drive, but synced with Synology real time. I also have a 2nd older Synology 2 bay NAS that backs up the main NAS. That backs up to a cloud account...

goldstar46 Loc: Tampa, Fl

====================================
Genocolo...

In your OP, you wrote:

..."Recently an experienced member posted a comment suggesting that rather than buy a new computer with a large resident hard drive (1tb), it might be better to have a smaller hard drive (256gb) and then use external ssd drives for photos, movies, etc..."
-------

In Ref. to the above, May I offer two observations with regards to any computer and Important data...
1) ~~ Always, Alway assume that if you own it, it will 'Break' or 'Fail'...
2) ~~ Always, if you can, follow the 3-2-1 Rule with regards to backups...

For your consideration and any other reading here, I would like to offer the design of my current system, and the way it works which adds not only "speed" but, lots of "safety backups" and travel options to consider... I have been in photography for many years, and I have been in Digital photography for over some 10 years now... I have had "losses" (Trust me ~~ Drives will Fail) and I have been hit by "RansomWare" BUT, I have always been able to recover...

==================

First, I run a windows 10, (very clean) gaming-style machine with Intel Core i7-8700 CPU and 32 Gig Ram...

My Primary C: Drive is M.2 1TB SSD (can be bigger or smaller) which has only O.S., & EXE, including Lightroom
... Reason for the above is should you have Drive Failure or OS failure, NO Data is affected.

My next drive is M.2 1TB SSD (can be any size) which is a "working Drive" for "current catalog & working photos"
... Reason for the above is for "speed" between EXEs on C: and Data files being worked on by Lightroom
..... Because I have lightroom files here, I also keep the "current" lightroom catalog on this drive

My third "internal" drive is a WD 14TB, (or any size) SATA Drive which is where prior years of photos are stored.
... Reason for the above is that "Storage" does NOT need the speed... Also, Catalogs are there for Old stuff
...... Each year, working files are "imported" from the "working SSD" over to the "Storage SATA" drive.

In addition to the above, I have Cloud Storage with "BackBlaze.com" w/ unlimited storage for $ 6/Month
... In the above, all of the above, coming from 1 IP address counts for unlimited 1 acct which is about 10 Gbs now
... BTW, if you attach any USB Drives to your Computer, they count under 1 account @ no additional charge.

Next, besides the "off-site cloud" storage, I have a 28TB QNAP NAS, at my residence for a "duplicate" backup
... The above NAS give me the third component of the 3-2-1 backup scenario

Important Note...
ADDED to all of the above, my "current working" drive has a "directory" which is tired to "Sync.com"
... In above, I use a "sync" directory for my "working directory" for lightroom, and that is cloud-based DIR.
... Everything which goes in the "Sync" DIR, goes to the cloud, and also is my working Lightroom DIR which
.... is synchronized with my home computer & laptop while I am away from home during my travels....
======================

All of the above works fine for me and establishes the full features of a robust 3-2-1 Storage System ~~
~~ BUT, in addition to the above, my wife and I travel a lot, and I use a Laptop with the following...

With my laptop, as I travel, I "offload" my images to my laptop "C:" drive which is a 1TB M.2 SSD
On my laptop, that personal directory on the C: Drive has also a "Sync" DIR which backup up to the cloud
Then that drive backs up, all of my laptop "Sync Data" (via the internet) is going to the cloud, BUT, show up on my home SYNC DIR back home, at a very, very fast rate...

In addition to the above "C: Drive" on my laptop, I have a second SATA SSD in the same laptop, and everything which I offload onto the "C: Drive" of my laptop... also gets back up to the second SATA SSD inside the Laptop.

Soooooo, When I get home from a long trip of 2,3, or 4 weeks, all of my full images are on my home machine.

===================================================

I hope the above makes sense and is only 1 way which I know many, many things can be done....
....... BUT, the above work for me because I travel so much for long periods of time and work with a laptop.

AND....... YES, other options are to be considered. I know the above is a lot of info, and should you have question, let me know and I will try to clarify...

Cheers
George Veazey
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WJShaheen Loc: Gold Canyon, AZ

Perfect. Having a large SSD for your primary, i.e., C-drive, really speeds thing up, not just access speed but also for page swaps. And as we all know, SSDs have come down in price considerably. They will soon be the de facto standard for standard primary (and even secondary) storage, and in my opinion already are.

I have a 4tb HDD for local backups.

GLSmith Loc: Tampa, Fl

Storing or allowing nothing but the operating system on the internal drive will maximize performance, Ive set mine up so all temporary files go to an external drive and can be deleted whenever, The print spool & Dump go to a separate partition. All of my images are on 4 TB external drives with a Type C USB connection for maximum transfer speed. My back up is also an external 4 TB drive identical to my production. I run it monthly (set to start about 9PM at night, so when I get up in the morning, it is done.
For security purposes, I refuse to consider anything to do with "The Cloud" After 30 years in IT & being involved with upp0er management, one needs an attorney to fully understand what legal aspects one gives up (READ THE SMALL PRINT).