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    Need to move C:/Users to D:

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by bonoz, Oct 23, 2011.

  1. bonoz

    bonoz Notebook Guru

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    I have an X220 tablet with a 60GB SSD. I only have 1.5 GB left. I really need to move my stuff to D: drive.

    Is there an easy and definitive method to do this?

    Thanks
     
  2. shrine

    shrine Notebook Enthusiast

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    You should probably move your Program Files, not your Users (just reinstall software to D:\). There are some compatibility issues with moving Users, I believe .. I've never heard of a Users/AppData folder larger than 40GB, ever.

    Or move your Documents, Music, (easy with libraries) TEMP (easy system vars)?
     
  3. bonoz

    bonoz Notebook Guru

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    What do people usually do?
     
  4. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    What's your drive setup?
     
  5. rkj__

    rkj__ Notebook Consultant

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    Did you find that filling up the SSD significantly decreased it's speed / performance?

    There is another thread here on nbr that I briefly flipped through, and people were giving mixed answers.
     
  6. AofI

    AofI Notebook Geek

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    Windows 7?
    You can't easily move the user directory but you can try and move the location that it saves you documents, music and such to.

    Open up your "user" folder, right click on "my documents" goto Properties. In the new window there will be a tab called Location, change it from c: to d:

    I don't think it'll move everything for you but you should be ale to do it by hand afterwards. You can do the same for all the other "my ..." folders.

    I also changed my "environment variables" in the "advanced" tab of the "System Properties" windows to make the temp folders on the D: drive as well.
     
  7. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    I've got My Documents mapped to another partition. It's easy to do by changing the properties in the Libraries (ditto Music, Video, etc). However, you may find that the big space guzzler is the AppData folder. You may be able to remap the contents of that within the individual programs. Use TreeSize Free to see where all the space has gone. Depending on how much RAM you have then you may be able to skrink the PageFile.

    People say that SSDs should have at least 20% free space for efficient garbage collection and wear levelling. This is more an issue of longevity than performance - SSDs can handle fragmented files better than HDDs.

    John
     
  8. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    Isn't there a registry setting that will auto default programs/Users to wherever you want?

    John you are alive! lol
     
  9. bonoz

    bonoz Notebook Guru

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    Anyone got a clue about the registry setting?

    SSD seems fine to me. I just don't want to use up all the space on it.
     
  10. power7

    power7 Notebook Evangelist

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    If you can't do a clean customized Windows install, move My Documents instead. Moving the whole Users on existing install is hard. There are guides in the Internet (like Ben's Bilingual Blog: Moving Users folder in Vista ), but they're complex and messy.

    IMO the best "Easy and definitive method" is "buy at least 120GB SSD for the W7 system drive. Saving $100 and going for a smaller SSD is just not worth it".
     
  11. JohnPrimeXXL

    JohnPrimeXXL Newbie

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  12. AofI

    AofI Notebook Geek

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    ohh that sounds slick, I think I'll try it on my next reload.
    Only thing is, I actually don't mind having the AppData dir on the sdd, it takes up room but it's data that my programs regularly access, the reason for the ssd to start with.
     
  13. JohnPrimeXXL

    JohnPrimeXXL Newbie

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    You can, of course, do the same thing with Program Files directories. The nice thing about this is when you install a program, you don't have to change the default installation path as C:\Program Files is still available but the files are stored on D.