Performance after moving User Profile or data files from boot SSD to HDD?

For a system with an 80gb SSD for OS and programs and a large HDD for docs, pictures, etc., would I get better performance with the entire user profile on the HDD, or only the folders containing the docs, pics, etc. ? It appears MUCH easier to move only the data folders, I'm the only user so there will only be 1 profile, and I don’t anticipate re-imaging frequently. So...which gives better performance, what kind and how much of a difference would it be, and are there any other differences (issues installing new s/w etc.)? Also, any opinions on where temp folders should reside?

Thanks in advance for your opinions and experiences!

 

For strictly performance reasons, then no, you would get worse performance - assuming your drive has plenty of remaining space for GC/TRIM to move things around.

However, if you want to move things for other reasons, there are too many unquestions:

Do you still have room on the SSD? Are you trying to free drive space?

What kind of HDD (RPM / seek speed? hybrid possibly?)

I have my %SystemDrive%\Users; %TEMP%; and %SystemRoot%\Temp all re-mapped using a junction to my Hybrid drives. Things seem to still running smoothly after 16+ months on the system.

If you want, there's no harm in trying it out. Just boot into a Rescue disk, copy things over using robocopy, and then create a junction. If you like the performance, keep it. If it doesn't work out, just reverse the process.

 

Thanks for the reply! As I have an 80gb SSD (Intel 310) and won't be installing a ton of programs (my old laptop with xp had only 60gb!), I don't think I need to worry about space too much. My HDD came with my Thinkpad T420 - Hitachi 7200rpm 320gb.

I've read some posts where some claim better performance with the entire user profile moved to the HDD as opposed to just moving the data files. I've also heard the opposite and would prefer the simpler solution of moving only the data folders if there is no performance or other downside. In terms of trying it both ways, I'm a real newbie at this stuff so it really helps to hear others' experience and knowledge on this issue.

Looking forward to hearing more.

 

Moving a directory is not really that difficult. I'm sure there are many different directions, but I found this set to be the easiest to follow - Move the Users Directory in Windows 7. Once you did it with one directory, just slightly modify which directory is in play, and you can do it with others.

One suggestion, rather just move things from one drive to the next, I created a directory named "Junctions" and under this directory I created the file system as it would exist on the other drive. So, I have a D:\Junctions\C\Windows\Temp and set a junction under C:\Windows\Temp. So, if you had a C:\dirA\dirB\dirC\dirD\dirE\dirFinal, I would have mapped this to d:\junctions\C\dirA\dirB\dirC\dirD\dirE\dirFinal. No one has to do it like this, but my thinking is that if you needed to quickly remember what directories were junctioned to what drive, just traversing the D:\Junctions\ directory will show you the corresponding junction.

Good Luck.