No, you shouldn't need it on a separate/different drive.
I don't use my C drive because it's an RAID0 NVME setup, and I'd like it to live a little while lmao.
First thing's first, while I look through the CodePaste. Can you try running AKI-1.5.1 as AKI-1.6.0 is unstable, and not being developed on.
Edit: Sooo, your CodePaste is very short...
Code
2021-08-02 17:35:31.469 -04:00|0.12.11.1.13487|Error|FilesChecker|Consistency ensurance failed. File not exist. File: "EscapeFromTarkov_BE.exe". ElapsedMilliseconds:191
It's not detecting EFT_BE.exe for some weird reason as I always delete both the BE folder, and executable, and haven't had any issues whether 1.5.1, 1.6.0, or Bleeding Edge. Do try 1.5.1 for me, and let me know if that fixes it.