Moving Windows and data from SSD to a HDD

[Dot-_-Com]

My SSD is full and it has windows and driver and other things but my 2tb HDD isn't full is it possible that I can move windows and drivers and other data into the HDD untill I get a bigger SSD? 

[Needfuldoer]

128 gig SSD? Oof. 

 

It would be easier to move some data over instead. Use a tool like WinDirStat to visualize what's using up all the space. Disk Cleanup (built into Windows) can also purge old System Restore points and Windows Update packages.

[Dot-_-Com]

2 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

128 gig SSD? Oof. 

 

It would be easier to move some data over instead. Use a tool like WinDirStat to visualize what's using up all the space. Disk Cleanup (built into Windows) can also purge old System Restore points and Windows Update packages.

I know big oof built this system back in 2018 now regretting it. I just bought a 2TB nvme drive 

[WhitetailAni]

I used to be in this situation! What I did is I moved my Documents and Downloads folder to the other drive.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/move-download-folder-to-other-drive-in-windows-10/67d58118-4ccd-473e-a3da-4e79fdb4c878

It helped a lot

[Dot-_-Com]

3 minutes ago, WhitetailAni said:

I used to be in this situation! What I did is I moved my Documents and Downloads folder to the other drive.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/move-download-folder-to-other-drive-in-windows-10/67d58118-4ccd-473e-a3da-4e79fdb4c878

It helped a lot

My downloads and documents Folders are already in my storage drive. all that is in my SSD is windows and drivers. When installed my drivers i used the custom install to make them download and install in my storage drive but they kept going into my SSD. When i get my new 2TB SSD im just gonna do a fresh install of windows and just have 1 drive 2TB Nvme Is enough space for me.

[WeeemRCB]

15 hours ago, Dot-_-Com said:

My downloads and documents Folders are already in my storage drive. all that is in my SSD is windows and drivers. When installed my drivers i used the custom install to make them download and install in my storage drive but they kept going into my SSD. When i get my new 2TB SSD im just gonna do a fresh install of windows and just have 1 drive 2TB Nvme Is enough space for me.

It shouldn't be that big.
My system is old as shit too and I run some space hungry programs on there (Photoshop suite etc)

 

1st thing to do is: Start | Run | cleanmgr.exe

This is the system "disk cleaner". Select C drive and then once it comes up with the list of things it can clean, ignore it and click "Clean up system files"
It will ask you for the C: drive again and this time it'll show you the same as before + the update backups.
This should get you back a decent amount of space.

 

On my system tho, the one thing that helped was Treesize.

Same idea as WinDirStat although I find it easier to read the old Treesize Pi-chart.

With that I saw that 1/3 of my 100Gb C partition was being used by Adobe updates.

Every time I opened a PDF, Adobe offers to do an update to the reader. I always ignore it, but what I didn't realise is that it downloaded it in the background ready to install. It does this for every new version, but because I never let it install it didn't expunge the download(s).

They get put in this directory:  C:\ProgramData\Adobe\ARM\
So I added a line to my logon/start-up script to auto remove them, so they no longer hog any space.

Here's all the files I remove on startup in case that's useful to keep your system clean too

Start /MIN cmd /c del /q /f C:\windows\user.dmp
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F C:\windows\memory.dmp
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F C:\windows\drwtsn32.log
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F C:\windows\Qtc_temp*
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F C:\temp\*.tmp
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F C:\temp\~*
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F %temp%\*
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F %tmp%\*
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F %SystemRoot%\temp\*
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F C:\windows\~*.tmp
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F %userprofile%\Desktop\*.log
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F %userprofile%\AppData\Local\CrashDumps\*.dmp
Start /MIN cmd /c del /Q /F /S C:\ProgramData\Adobe\ARM\*

 

Before, my C drive was like yours - 99% full

After I got rid of the Adobe downloads: 

 

If you still want to migrate across to a new drive, I can recommend the Macrium Reflect software.
Put the new drive in a caddy and select "Clone Drive" and it'll clone it across.

Then power off, put the new drive in and boot up. Should work first time. 

 

[Dot-_-Com]

Currently I have a SSD with windows and other programs and a HDD for storage and games and other miscellaneous stuff. I use the SSD as a windows boot drive. I have recently acquired 2Tb NVme m.2 drive and wanting to move stuff from my SSD to the new and improved SSD and keep my HDD as a storage. Also is their a easier way to move games from HDD to the new 2Tb SSD without having to unistall it and reinstalling it to the SSD.

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, Dot-_-Com said:

Currently I have a SSD with windows and other programs and a HDD for storage and games and other miscellaneous stuff. I use the SSD as a windows boot drive. I have recently acquired 2Tb NVme m.2 drive and wanting to move stuff from my SSD to the new and improved SSD and keep my HDD as a storage. Also is their a easier way to move games from HDD to the new 2Tb SSD without having to unistall it and reinstalling it to the SSD.

What is your current SSD?

 

It will make more sense overall to keep booting off your current and use the new one as games/storage.  There is no need to have an HDD in a modern system anymore

 

 

Gaming off a HDD negates the benefits of a boot SSD as well.

[Dot-_-Com]

2 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

What is your current SSD?

 

It will make more sense overall to keep booting off your current and use the new one as games/storage.  There is no need to have an HDD in a modern system anymore

 

 

Gaming off a HDD negates the benefits of a boot SSD as well.

My current SSD is only 120Gb (I know super small SSD) it only has 45Gb left of space. It is some Cheap Inland SSD. That same SSD also has my GPU drivers.

So it be smarter just to migrate my HDD to my new NVme m.2 drive?

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Dot-_-Com said:

My current SSD is only 120Gb (I know super small SSD) it only has 45Gb left of space. It is some Cheap Inland SSD. That same SSD also has my GPU drivers.

So it be smarter just to migrate my HDD to my new NVme m.2 drive?

Boot drives aren't needed to be large at all.  I've used 120 and 250 drives for boot.  That's more than enough for Windows and game launchers.

 

Running a game off a HDD means your loading of textures and assets are dictated by the slow ass HDD.

 

I would personally boot off the 120GB SSD< put all games on the NVMe drive, and pics/movies/files on the HDD if you feel you still need the space.

 

If you look in my sig, you'll see my 9900K/1080Ti system boots off a smallish SSD and I have everything else on other SSDs.

 

Of course, you are more than welcome to clone the small SSD to the NVMe and use that as your boot and data drive combined.   Not sure the rest of your system but it won't give a performance boost to boot off either,.  Whatever you do, get the games off the HDD

 

 

 

[Dot-_-Com]

21 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Boot drives aren't needed to be large at all.  I've used 120 and 250 drives for boot.  That's more than enough for Windows and game launchers.

 

Running a game off a HDD means your loading of textures and assets are dictated by the slow ass HDD.

 

I would personally boot off the 120GB SSD< put all games on the NVMe drive, and pics/movies/files on the HDD if you feel you still need the space.

 

If you look in my sig, you'll see my 9900K/1080Ti system boots off a smallish SSD and I have everything else on other SSDs.

 

Of course, you are more than welcome to clone the small SSD to the NVMe and use that as your boot and data drive combined.   Not sure the rest of your system but it won't give a performance boost to boot off either,.  Whatever you do, get the games off the HDD

 

 

 

Alright I think im gonna keep the SSD as boot and move everything from HDD to my new m.2. How do i go about moving everything from my HDD to the new SSD?

[Dedayog]

52 minutes ago, Dot-_-Com said:

Alright I think im gonna keep the SSD as boot and move everything from HDD to my new m.2. How do i go about moving everything from my HDD to the new SSD?

If it's just game data and storage, you can drop and drag.  Then point your library to it.  Steam has a good guide how to move it's library for example.

 

Steam Support :: Moving a Steam Installation and Games (steampowered.com)

 

Or you can use a free cloning software like Macrium Reflect.

 

Macrium Reflect Free Trials