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Many users have C:\ with a small SSD and D:\ with a larger HDD.

Windows puts the user folders on C:\, which means that AppData, Downloads, and Documents for several users rapidly fill up the smaller disk. The whole point of the larger disk is user data.

Plenty of discussions (1, 2 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) make it clear that moving user data is difficult or risky, with sysprep, hardlinks, registry edits, and other deep technical work that is not suitable for non-technical users.

Even just moving Documents is blocked because of a link -- I think OneDrive did this -- putting Documents under C:\Users\MyName\OneDrive\Document. (And the user name is hardcoded instead of passed with a variable). And in any case, Documents is not the main culprit -- AppData is.

Is there an easy and safe way to set the user folders in D:\?

If not, it seems that the larger "data disk" with 900 GB is of little value other than perhaps manually moving movies to it.

Joshua Fox
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3 Answers3

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Is there an easy and safe way to set the user folders in D:?

If not, it seems that the 900 GB disk is of little value other than perhaps manually moving movies to it.

Is there an easy way to move USERS? No (95%)

900 GB disk is of little value?

Depends on your point of view. I have explained a little more below.

A C: Drive has to be pretty small for a full Windows system not to fit.

Some economical machines have 128 GB SSD C: drives and a slow HDD for storing data. This was never a good choice.

Numerous commercial machines have 256 GB SSD drives and HDD may be optional.

On my own ThinkPad working machine here:

USERS is 20GB; Program Files and PF (x86) is 23GB; Program Data is 9GB; Windows including WinSXS is 25GB for a total of 77GB.

I have another desktop with lots of photos and USERS is 40Gb - Photos being the difference.

So you can happily run Windows on a 256GB SSD and then (only if necessary) isolate Photos, Videos, and very large files to non-USERS folders and put those on your HDD.

Working as above, there is no need to move USERS to a different drive - this won't readily work anyway (95%).

The best result I have found over the years (<100GB for XP back to DOS) is a 1TB or larger SSD drive for C: . I used 500GB for years and 1TB just makes life easier.

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The short answer is probably no. You already have linked the other possibilities to move some or all the user's Folders to another drive with the registry, hard links, etc...

I tried some simpler things once I had a smaller SSD built into my pc but then I had to account for many problems for example using normal links instead of hard links, changing the environment variable etc...

There are multiple ways a program can use the user folder, so to have no problems further you'll have to for almost all of them or buy yourself a bigger SSD.

CentrixDE
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I just made folders Documents and Downloads on my D drive. Then, when you have saved a .txt or .png, .xlsx, etc. to either folder, the next one will automatically attempt to save to the same location as your last save. I am not taking my brand new laptop apart to replace my SSD with a larger SSD because it is still under warranty and I'm not adding an external drive. I hate having things dangle off the side. This works very well for me. And, of course, you can add subfolders under Documents and Downloads just as you would on the C drive. You can also add videos, pictures, music, or any folder name that you want. My computer Setup

I also have applications/programs install to my D drive. My SSD is only 128 GB because I opted to get a great computer with all of the other features I wanted without spending thousands of dollars. My HDD is 1 TB. So, my laptop is very fast and graphics ready without spending too much. Most SSDs wear out more quickly than HDDs anyway. To buy one that lasts longer, you have to spend a lot. I have it all working the way I like.

DianaM
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