Which type of drive is ideal for installation of UE4, supporting applications and project files?

Development Getting Started & Setup
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1

Hi,

I have just bought a customizable PC with the following specs and planing to use for short game development, including VR (likely with Occulus) and AR:

ASUS STRIX Z370F motherboard
NVIDIA GTX 1080TI 11GB GDDR5X
SSD Primary drive: 250GB SAMSUNG 970 Evo M.2 SSD (Read up to 3,400 MB/sec, write up 1,500 MB/sec)
SSD Secondary drive: 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD (Read up to 550MB/sec, write up to 520 MB/sec)
Hard drive: TOshiba 2TB 3.5 Inch HDD

The technical staff at the computer shop suggested that I install the operating system on the 250GB M.2 SSD, and use the 1TB Samsung 860 EVO to install UE4 and for storage to use the hard drive.

My questions are these:

  1. Would you also recommend the same as the technical staff in terms of what should be installed where?
  2. Since UE4 needs Visual Studio to package the games, which drive would be ideal to install this in? Should it be in the same drive as the UE4 engine or in the drive where the OS is parked (Windows 10)?
  3. What about Occulus? Should it be installed in the operating system drive or can/should be installed on SSD or HDD?
  4. Project files? Should be in which SSD or on the HDD?
  5. My PC is still not assembled and I may be able to change the specs further. Would you recommend I do so especially for the drive that will host the UE4 engine and the project files? I am mindful that the speed of the 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD where the technical staff suggested I install UE4 is not as fast as the 250GB SAMSUNG 970 Evo M.2 SSD.

Thank you and I look forward to your comments.

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installing your operating system on a sdd if a good idea and it helps alot. aside from that it doesnt matter all that much in my opinion. the secondary ssd is more than enough for the unreal engine. granted i dont know what your goal is but for basic game creation you have way more than enough power. I personally have a basic ssd for my operating system and certain often used programs, but my unreal engine is on a normal 7200 rpm hdd and ive run into no issues. once you get to the level of hardware your buying its not about can you do it but more of how fast can i do it. so given diminishing returns i would say you are set and have a great system. one thing to note though i wouldnt try putting unreal on the m2 drive with the os since unreal can take up alot of space and theres nothing worse than having to try to delete things to install updates.

if i had to make any non positive comments on your system it would be a few things: you didnt list your power supply so make sure you have a decent one from a good brand, in the future you may want to look into adding a bit more ram if your going to pursue realistic and open world games (what you have should be enough but that would be the only possible limiting factor i see), you also didnt list your cpu but im assuming you didnt skimp there either.