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for my new desktop computer i want to buy a (smaller) SSD drive and put Windows 7 64bit on the SSD and only the most used stuff. And a second (bigger) normal HDD on which everything else goes. What is a good strategy to do so?

Is it possible to:

  • move the program folder to the HDD (both x86 and 64bit one)? This should be possible with normal windows features.
  • move the users folder to the HDD - this should as well be possible directly with a windows setting
  • move some stuff from the windows folder itself there (i am thinking of the Installer directory - maybe more?). For this i hope that Symlink can be used. Will it work if files aer in use? Installer folder i would hope that i can move with no files in use? What about other files - possible to do from some command line or such?

And in case i use one program very often can i use symlink easyly and seamlessly to move that program or some data files onto the SSD and gain all the speed bonus?

Are there any known limitations of symlinks using Hardlinks or is it safe to use that?

Thanks in advance!

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Eleasar - can I please ask that you read our FAQ before submitting a question here again, this is very clearly one better suited to our sister site superuser.com as it's client/personal-computing related rather than professional/server oriented. I'll move it over to them now for you. – Chopper3 Oct 7 '10 at 11:45
ok sure - i was quite certain that i was here on superuser confused Was registered on stackoverflow, wanted to post here and registered therefore - maybe after registration i misclicked or such.. thx for moving. – Eleasar Oct 7 '10 at 12:46
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migrated from serverfault.com Oct 7 '10 at 11:45

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

1 Answer

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This application (SteamMover) was designed for the very purpose that you mention. It was written with Steam games in mind, but could be used for any application in theory. Some applications will not support this, but it is easily reversible should your move fail. You'll just have to test each application to see.

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thank you! Will give it a try :) Are there any known compatibility issues when this is used directly with windows (be it with that tool or the mklink command)? Any recommendations? – Eleasar Oct 7 '10 at 12:57
This answer to a similar question on serverfault details the best way to go about moving your Users folder - some of the comments have some warnings that you should read. There aren't compatibility problems with Windows itself, but some legacy applications may look in the wrong location for things. – Will Oct 7 '10 at 14:01
ok once more - did test it, is a bit optimized for steam (obviously) but does the job well. The only problem is that file locks prohibit the usage. So is there any option to use it on locked files as well e.g. during startup or the like? – Eleasar Oct 7 '10 at 14:01
You can use a windows disk to boot to a command prompt - at this point the files will not be locked. SteamMover won't be available there obviously, but you could use it to build the correct commands and save them before restarting. – Will Oct 7 '10 at 14:09
ok thx - will give it a try when my computer arives if this works or has problems in some areas. Don't want to break my existing one ;-) – Eleasar Oct 7 '10 at 15:20
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