Hi Fhios,
Thank you. Let me get clear. Are you saying all your programs and Windows 10 OS should be on the SSD, and the user data on a separate disk?
In my case I use a laptop exclusively. I use USBs for incremental backup. But sounds like I should be using a hard disk for my user data. So for the laptop, should I take an external HD drive with me all the time? The laptop only has one disk.
Many thanks.
That was the second question (I should have asked.. desktop or laptop)..
If you have a laptop using an SSD, you should definitely have an external HHD for backup. You never know when you are going to have issues with the SSD (any power surge can corrupt your data).
While I love the idea of the speed of an SSD, they still are far from the stability of true HDDs.
Also, consider having a dual boot with Windows AND Linux on your onboard HD, and have an external HD to install your wanted/needed apps on. The Linux partition can be very small (maybe 7 gig for full OS and some side apps for tools) and the dual boot can be used in place of having to boot from USB. Linux can read (and repair) Windows.. but Windows cannot see Linux.
I do not keep my programs on an SSD drive. I install everything after Windows 10 to a separate Hard drive. Can’t do that with laptop and USB stick performance would be horrible.
There are hybrid SSD drives with built in Hard drives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive
I have no experience with them, but looks suitable for a laptop. and has been supported since Windows 8.1. I’m not advocating that you have to spend more money. I’m just old school. Love the speed, distrustful of the increased failure rate — perceived or otherwise.
My order of troubleshooting would be heat, voltage, hardware, software with and emphasis on age of hardware So I check:
Fans and intakes for dust/crud buildup. A good temperature monitoring program is useful just to see if you are overheating. Everything else you’ll need a good service tech or become a good service tech.
You are going to hate this suggestion but Google Drives are good for files you don’t mind people seeing. I don’t keep anything on my computer that I want to keep secret. If I want to keep it secret(bank data, etc), it gets encrypted and put somewhere off the computer.