Windows 10: Can you expand internal storage with storage devices?

So I have a desktop PC running windows 10, with 50 GB of storage. 50 GB is not enough for me, so I want to expand it, but I also don't want to spend a lot of money on new internal hard drives since the device is pretty old. But I have a lot of USBs and external storage devices, I was wondering if I can plug them into my PC and make the PC think the USBs are internal storage devices. If the PC thinks they are internal storage devices, it'll make the storage on local bigger. For example, If I plug a 32 GB USB, the PC thinks I'm adding more internal storage, and the storage in windows C goes from 50 to 82 GB.


If you ask why I don't just use a USB for extra storage. A usb is not on local, which means I can't run apps from the USB they'll install on local anyways, which would be fine for portable apps, but I don't have any. Saving downloads and documents saves to local automatically, and it takes time and hassle to copy them from local to external and back.


If you have a solution for expanding the storage of local by using USB's, please let me know, even if it's on beta, alpha-beta, hard to use, unreliable, if it seems to be a viable solution, let me know, I'm that desperate. 50 GB is totally used up by now, and it's only been my first day.


Also, it's an optiplex 990not upgraded. Intel core i5, 8GB's ram, 50 GB's internal hard drive.


Edit: if this question is unclear in any way, please don't hesitate to ask

:)

 

Internal Storage devices being detected as removable devices

Hi,

I would suggest you to update your storage controller driver.

Method 1: Update Storage Controller Driver

Follow the steps.

• Press Windows key + X key and click Device Manager.
• Expand the Storage Controller.
• Right-click on the Storage controller Driver
  and select Update Driver Software.
• Wait for sometime and check if the issue persists.
• Restart your system.

Method 2: Uninstall and then reinstall Storage Controller driver from the Manufacturer's Website

Follow the steps.

• Press Windows key + X key and click Device Manager.
• Expand the Storage Controller.
• Right-click on the Storage controller Driver
  and select Uninstall.
• Now, go to the Manufacturer's website and download the latest storage controller driver.
• Once the download is complete, double-click and run the setup file to complete installation.
• Restart your system.

Hope this helps. Please respond if you have further related queries.

Regards,

 

Internal Storage Devices swap drive letters

The machine has a M.2 PCLe NVMe SSD (the system drive), an internal HDD storage drive, and an internal optical drive
The SATA controller was set as RAID at the factory. I never enabled RAID on the system by any means to create RAID volumes.

The BIOS lets me change the SATA Controller to RAID or to AHCI.
I recently made the change from RAID to AHCI in the BIOS using safemode boot procedure steps.

Something I didn’t expect happening during this change was the internal optical Drive and the internal HDD swapping drive letters.
Maybe I’m being a little overly apprehensive. If the data can't be restored one day for whatever reason, would keeping the drive letters the way they are assigned now and making all new backups of personal data, and creating new DVD rescue disks, and new backup DVD’s be the more prudent step to ensure the data integrity for the lack of a better term ?

It's easy to reassign the drive letters following the excellent tutorial
“Change and Assign Drive Letter in Windows 10 by @Brink which offers a way for correcting this on-board SATA port redirection that maybe occurred or whatever, except.....
every DVD burned, every personal file ever backed up on the external drive using SyncBackFree, the rescue DVD, all originally created with the opposite drive letters, draws concern of potential file unrestorability, and DVD data unreliability.

I only mention my skepticism changing the drive letter of a storage device back to what it originally was and potentially not being able to restore back ups only because some have attested that trying to restore personal files to the internal HDD lead to headaches.

Any comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Not to get off the subject but,
The Storage controller driver that installed is a Standard Microsoft NVMe driver. Any suggestions on this generic driver are also very much appreciated.

 

Expanding Storage

Hi! I'm Dan! An Independent Advisor and also a Microsoft user for several years. I'll be more than happy to assist you today!

If you are looking to expand your storage, I recommend that you purchase an HDD or SDD compatible with your laptop. You can contact your device manufacturer to know which storage options you can use. Cloud service is mainly used for backing up your files.

Best regards,

Dan