Should I make two partitions on the 500GB SSD, one just for the OS, and the other for the rest of the software ? Or should I just install everything in one partition ?
I see no reason to partition your C drive. Years ago, partitioning made it easier to organize your files. But that is simple to do now with File Manager, Libraries and folders.
There are no performance benefits to partitioning.
And I would leave the system managed PF on the C drive too. The default settings work just fine.
Not sure I see the point of a RAID either. If you had two identical SSDs, then maybe (though I wouldn't - especially with a notebook). But since your SSDs are different sizes, I don't recommend RAIDs. Besides, RAIDs typically do two things. If mirrored, they cut your available storage space or if striped, they make your data more vulnerable. Yes, they can, if striped, increase performance, but with SSDs already, most users would never notice any performance gains.
I'm getting a new laptop with
two SSD's:
- 500 GB for OS (Win10) and software (games, antivirus, image/video editing software)
- 1TB for (lots) of personal data, like music, pics, videos
I use a similar setup with two SSDs on several PCs here and it works great for me. Windows 10 Pro, the system managed PFs, hardware drivers, and all my applications are on the C drives. The larger D drives are used for personal files, and to keep a backup image of C drives.