Here’s the question:
If I have two hard drives, can I install Fedora itself on one, and most software on the other one?
Cuz I have a 32gb hard drive for my current os(Windows 10) and another 1tb one for store data and software and i want to wipe them
Sorry for bad English
The general answer is: yes, you can. However, if you are not a linux administrator, I recommend to keep it more simple, i.e. install system and software on a single partition.
You want to wipe both drives? My recommendation is to install Fedora on the fastest hard drive in a partition of no more than 50gb.
Both hard drives are the same speed? Then I would install Fedora on the 32 gb hard drive, and use the other one for data storage (simplest to set up) or as a separate /home (all user data and user configuration then end up on that other drive, somewhat more complex to set up).
32gb for a system partition still is quite a lot: you need to install many, many flatpak applications before you go over 25 gb. If the need ever arizes, you still could move flatpaks to the other partition.
1 Like
I’m pretty afraid of disk spaces cuz 32gb is quite not enough for Windows (for now, it’s only have 3gb of free space even though I install almost all softwares on the other disk)
But the 32gb disk is on SATA m.2 disk and another 1tb one is simply on standard SATA, so maybe m.2 is faster? idk. My laptop sucks and it’s been used for 10 years or longer maybe. That’s the reason of why I want to reinstall it with Fedora
SATA M.2 is probably not much faster than “SATA plugged SSD”. For example, Crucial says
M.2 SATA SSDs can achieve speeds comparable to their 2.5-inch SATA counterparts, typically reaching around 550-600 MB/s for sequential read/write operations.
1 Like
If you are not afraid getting your hands “dirty“ 
, you can have both drives used to install Fedora. As @ytrium mentioned already, you can have your efi, boot and root partitions on smaller 32G drive and your user homedir for files and Flatpak apps on the bigger one.
This will require custom partitioning during install. Next, you can remove flatpak Flathub remote which is added to the --system by default and re-add it to --user so all flatpak apps and its data will be in .var directory of your homedir on the bigger drive. IMPORTANT - all installed Flathub apps will be removed together with the Flathub remote and you will have to re-install the apps once Flathub is added to --user.
This approach makes sense when you prefer Flatpak’ed application. If you prefer native apps, then 32G drive for everything except your files will be too small.
1 Like
Whatever I only have these two hard drive slots, and I chose to use my 32gb disk for Windows. Also, I didn’t install the 1tb disk yet, because I’m gonna use it to replace my 120gb disk that I currently use
(so now I have 3 disks, one 32gb, one 120gb, one 1tb)
Yup, so maybe I have to install Fedora on the 1tb drive 
Whatever, this might be a better choice cuz 32gb is really too small and I really don’t know how I made that decision of buying a 32gb disk for Windows years ago.
As @pg-tips already mentioned, the disks probably have not much speed difference. So why not make it simple for yourself:
Remove the 32GB disk. If not possible don’t select that drive when installing Fedora, only select the 1TB one.
install Fedora onto the 1TB disk which gives you plenty of space for everything. It’s what I also use. You can use automatic partitioning if you like that, or you create 4 partitions yourself:
600MB efi partition, mounted as /boot/efi
2GB boot partition, mounted as /boot
45-50-60 GB (whatever you want) as Root, mounted as /
The rest of the disk as your home disk, mounted as /home
Still, use the 1TB for Linux, you can if you want, use the 120GB for Windows and see what you do with the 32GB one.
3 Likes
That’s impossible. My laptop has only 2 slots, one m.2 and the other standard SATA.
Let me re-mention my hard drives:
- 32gb m.2
- 1tb SATA
- 120gb SATA
For now I installed the first and third disks, and I’m gonna replace the third with the second, the 1tb one.
Thanks to all. You guys really helped me a lot.
Most likely your laptop came with it. There was a period in time when laptops would use a small SSD (sometimes even Optane) as a cache drive to boost the performance of a slower hard drive. This was pre-configured in the BIOS and the two drives would show up as one drive in Windows, accessed with Intel’s RST driver. (I don’t suggest trying to re-create this cache setup in Linux at this point, just sharing this as a FYI.)
1 Like
I know it clearly I bought it by myself.
But whatever, i’m so dumb that I forget the size of the disks.
It’s not 32gb but 128gb. LOL
But whatever, i have a new plan: Install Windows 10 on the 128gb disk, and Fedora on the 1tb one separately.
Also the 120gb disk is wrong too, in fact it’s 240gb. LOL again
M.2 SATA SSD’s do have a big advantage for small scattered operations. There have been systems that pooled small SATA SSD’s with larger spinning drives.
1 Like
Do you mean “M.2 SATA SSDs have a big advantage over spinning drives”? No disagreement there.
Or do you mean “M.2 SATA SSDs have a big advantage over SATA SSDs connected with a SATA cable (not M.2)”? That’s what I couldn’t find strong evidence for.
SATA SSD can be much faster than spinning SATA storage for use cases that require lots of head movement on spinning drives.
Of course.
Actually, it’s not explicitly stated here whether the 1TB and 120GB drives here are spinning or 2.5" SATA SSDs, so I’ll edit my previous comments.