Moving the User folder in its entirety from C to D

Hi,

I would recommend not doing that... It's not a simple thing to start with, and it can have some really adverse consequences...

Especially when it comes time for a major update\upgrade...

Too many unintended and disastrous consequences to move the User Account folder to another drive.  Instead just move your active User folders from your User account to the other drive.  User Folders - Change Default Location

This keeps C smaller for imaging purposes, but built-in imaging will want to include the data partition since it now has System files.  Solution is to use a more flexible imaging app like free and fully automated Macrium Reflect is a Free and Easy To Use Backup Utility which can also restore anywhere instead of the exact same position on disk as per Windows imaging.

Appreciate the post but still...

The registry identifies the path to several important folder using %SystemDrive%\Folder_Names...

If you introduce another global variable say, %SystemDataDrive% you could then use %SystemDataDrive%\Users and %SystemDataDrive%\ProgramData etc...

All that would be required to move these folders would be one simple edit to the registry... I fully appreciate that other installed programs might hard-code the user folder which would result in problems but these are easily addressed...

A shame really, I could greatly reduce the size of the SSD required to run Windows 10 if I could relocate a few more folders to my regular hard-drive...

Many thanks...

Hi,

Fortunately SSD's are coming down in cost...

I run Windows 10 x64 with a ton of installed programs on a 128GB SSD... it is currently about half full... But most of that us actually unused space taken up by the Hibefil.sys and PageFile.sys... 12.5gb and 16.5gb respectively... The pagefile can be resized if needed, and the hiberfil turned off... But I wouldn't do that either...

I relocate Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads, and similar to a different drive kind of like what has been mentioned...

BTW... If you check at the specs for SSDs you will find that the larger 512gb and up drives have higher write speed than the smaller ones, and possibly faster read speeds as well...

You may be defeating the benefit of a SSD to a certain degree by trying to use as small of one as possible...

While I enjoy the extra speed afforded by SSD'd, I didn't buy it just for the speed increase, I bought it because it had the potential to outlast your average mechanical hard-drive, but as everyone one knows, SSD's have one major weakness and that's the number of write cycles before degradation set in.

It therefore follows, if I can reduce the number of write cycles (by moving files and folders that are constantly changing to a regular drive), I can have the best of both worlds.

While there is an argument that moving the data files/folders to a regular drive would have no appreciable difference in the overall life of an SSD's (I am yet to be convinced), it certainly wouldn't do any harm either... besides I favor the separation of data and executable in much the same was as I favor the separation of the operation system from all other programs...

I guess when SSD'd memory cells have a half-life of plutonium, I'll be happy... well either that or my OS comes in ROM  ;)

Mike

Hi,

I actually tried pretty much what you are proposing at one time...

It turned out to be WAY to big of a PITA...

It causes problems with upgrades, some program functions, and other stuff...

I finally just did the normal User folders like Documents and etc...

Mostly because it make my images smaller, not because of wear and tear...

In reality, one of the more frequent processes doing writes to your SSD is the SwapFile, PageFile, and HiberFil processes... I actually moved those as well, which was less of a problem than moving the Users folder...

My current Crucial SSD is 2 1/2 years old and has used 3\4's of it's 72TBs of writes, and no signs of issues... The life expectancy of the newer SSDs is equal or greater than a lot of the lower cost HDDs...  

I have another machine with a Corsair SSD that is 5 1\2 years old, that has withstood countless reimaging overwrites without any sign of problems...

I actually paid $50 more for the 120GB Corsair 5 1\2 years ago than I paid for the 512GB Crucial 2 1\2 years ago, and the price has dropped more since...

To me, a SSD has become a throwaway item... It is not worth the trouble to try to Extend it's life with all of the imaging, and reloading of images I do with Win 7, 8\8.1, and 10... all on the same machine...

It's entirely up to you what you decide in the end, and I have no problem if you have a different perspective... It's your machine...

Just thought I would provide my experience and thoughts on the subject...

I agree with your "wear leveling" concerns with an SSD.   I have my OS on one and moved a number of high volume write directories off the SSD to a "platter" hard drive.

I did this using the "MKLink /J" command to create directory junctions from the SSD to HD.   There are a ton of articles available that detail the specifics of how to accomplish.  I've relocated the Windows User, Temp, System32/winevt, and Software Distribution folders from the SSD on which Windows is installed to my platter HD.   I've done this with Windows 7 and Windows 10.   I've had zero issues.   Naturally, the migration from 7 to 10 required redoing the mklinks.

I set things up by booting from Windows PE.   The biggest issue was having to use a DiskPart prompt to change the Windows PE bogus drive letters to the ones I used.  After fixing the drive letters, I run a batch script to move the directories and define the directory junctions.

Naturally, I would strongly recommend that you take an image of your OS partition prior to tweaking.  I use Acronis.

Doing the above does require decent computer skills, but you don't have to be a wizard to do so.

My opinion.....individual mileage will vary.