Move programs, data from SSD to hard drive in Win10

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Interesting question… Woody, recently I brought your book to help me with Windows 10. I have a new computer with windows 10 as an OS, it has two har
[See the full post at: Move programs, data from SSD to hard drive in Win10]

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Windows Easy Transfer might work…

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Use an app like Steam Mover to move the app files/folders and create junction links on the SSD that point to the files physically residing on the mechanical HDD. Steam Mover is obviously meant for Steam games, but it should work just fine since the underlying idea isn’t specific to games. http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover

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Possibility of using an external drive and Windows Easy Transfer?

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Uninstall and reinstall on the correct drive is the best method I can say.

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change the drive letter and path in regedit.
Windows Key + R type regedit enter key

1.) run regedit
2.) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion
3.) change all c:\ to what ever you want to.ie
C:\Program Files\Common Files
D:\Program Files\Common Files

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Assuming you’re a subscriber to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, I’m not sure you even CAN ask Photoshop and Lightroom to install on an alternate volume any more. I don’t recall being prompted by the Creative Cloud application, but to be fair I’ve not explored all the possible options. Maybe there’s a hidden option in there somewhere.

I’d advise putting a system together nowadays with nothing less than 512 GB C: volume. More if possible. Get a couple of 1 TB SSDs, for example, and RAID 0 them together, making one big, fast C: volume. Yes, I know that’s more expensive. But you’re kidding yourself if you think a 200 GB C: volume is sufficient to run a Windows system with Adobe software.

And, big picture-wise, a Windows system just works better when everything’s on C: in all the default places.

-Noel

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Hello

* Start you computer with your install media
* Choose “Repair your computer”
* Open a command prompt
* copy c:program files to d: with robocopy :
robocopy “c:program files” “d:program files” /MIR
* remove c:program files
rmdir /q /s “c:program files”
* create a symbolic link from d to c
mklink /d “c:program files” “d:program files”

* reboot, it should works.

As always, backup your data before, it’s easy to broke your computer this way!!

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I suggest you post this issue in the Wilders Backup, Imaging and Disk forum. It can be fixed but further information is needed.

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To the original poster, the forum you want is here:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/forums/backup-imaging-disk-mgmt.97/

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There are lots of potential problems with this approach…

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There are also lots of potential problems with this approach.

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Backup-Plugins etc..then

Uninstall both programs and restart PC.

Download:
1.Wise disk cleaner (slightly more thorough/aggressive than CCleaner) and Wise Registry Clean (NOTE: both portable versions) from here:
http://www.wisecleaner.com/download.html

2.Run both programs and clean redundant files/paths to old installation and clean registry paths taking care not to remove others unless you know what you are doing)

3.Once remnants removed, restart PC.

4.Reinstall lightroom and photoshop (Important: use Custom Installation for both programs) and point your folders to the Hard Drive.

5. Reinstall plug-ins etc

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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No need to install on the second disk and I am actually against installing software on another disk than the system drive.
You can and is highly recommended to store data on the second drive though.
You can also move all folders in your profile, less AppData on the second drive and this is supported. AppData and subfolders should stay where they are originally. Right-click on each folder and change the location by keeping the folder structure, i.e. change only the letter from C: to D:
Do not move whole profiles, only folders.
Do not move folders by manipulating the registry, use only the GUI as otherwise is dangerous and not supported.

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RAID 0 is dangerous for most users and is normally used either for specific performance applications or by gamers.
RAID 1 is a more rational choice if it is to be RAID, with a minimal performance hit but huge reliability enhancement.
Totally agree that all software should be installed on the system drive.

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It’s near the unix way to do it. I’m interested in some of the problems you’ll see in this approach.

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As others with legitimate PC repair knowledge have recommended you’re far better off having programs installed to the boot drive.

That being said (again), buy a bigger SSD and clone it. Which cloning program to use has been covered here numerous times and it still remains each individual user’s choice.

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1. From what I’ve read, because of the way trim works on an SSD, you will get longer life and better performance if the drive is not over full.

2. You will get better/faster program performance from and SSD as opposed to a HDD.

3. In my experience, it is better to install a program in it’s default location.

4. SSDs are cheap right now.

What I’m going to suggest is how I would go about fixing the problem on a non-UEFI computer, but I’m sure the same approach is doable with UEFI.

1. Buy a new SSD – at least 500GB.
2. Make note of the partitions on your current drive – size, formatting, function
3. Backup (IMAGE) your current drive using backup s/w to an external drive. I use Acronis. Many of my friends recommend Macrium. I do not install the s/w, I boot from the disk and do a full backup (image).
4. Replace the SSD with the new one, or attach the new on via USB.
5. Again boot from the backup s/w disk and restore the image to the new SSD. Be careful to restore the partitions in te same order and size they were on the old drive – EXCEPT the C: partition. The C: partition is restored into whatever remains when you subtract the others from the SSD size. Sometimes in the past, I’ve had to restore the partitions one at a time.

Example:
Partition 1 – OEM (w MB)
Partition 2 – Utility (x GB)
Partition 3 – OS (y GP)
Partition 4 – Recovery (Z GB)

Restore MBR, OEM, Utility
Subtract Recovery z GB from what’s left
Restore C: into slightly less than the difference.
Restore Recovery into the same size partition it came from.

There is no need to reinstall programs with an image. This is non-destructive. You still have the original drive intact, so you can try again if you get it wrong the first time. When you finish, you can move your data to the second HDD if you want.

I repeat, this is not UEFI, but I suspect the latest version of Acronis can accommodate it.

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I run a 512GB SSD on the C: drive with programs installed. Running two in RAID 0 could be a good idea for those requiring very high performance on this drive. Maybe only very impatient gamers and video editors, maybe?

I run 2 x 2Tb WD Black on REFS Mirror for the data. RAID 1 from the Intel controller is not very good so I avoid it and use REFS instead. REFS protects against bit rot and it knows which data is corrupted when that happens. With RAID 1 from Intel, there can be situations where there is no way to tell which data is good. Not as safe as you thought, even though I don’t hear many stories of corrupted data.

Secondly, I spoke to WD and Intel about this because I was completely shocked to discover that if you use a WD Black 2 Tb or more disk with their slow spin-up times, touted as a feature for reliability, it took me between 12 and 17 seconds to get out of sleep instead of the very quick time it takes if you don’t use the controller in RAID mode. Maybe Windows wait for some ready signal, I don’t know. But the deal is put your disk in RAID, do a RAID or not, configure the array or not, it doesn’t matter, your getting out of sleep will take forever. Change those disks to AHCI, run them in mirror using REFS built in Windows 8 or more and you don’t suffer from this issue. I told both Intel and WD that while people complain the desktop is dead, they do everything to make it happen by not understanding this very basic idea that today, instant on matters. Contrast that to how a Macbook from even a long time ago quickly comes back to life just like your phone.

Since REFS in mirror mode seems to have good performance in reads (which is what we normally focus on), there doesn’t seem to be much reasons left to use RAID 1 from the cheap onboard controllers. With REFS, you can read the disks in another station using Windows 8 or more. Be careful if you update the array in Windows 10 AU to the latest version, it can’t be read on any PC below this version. Still, this REFS seems like a good thing from Microsoft so I give them the praise for this.

For some things used frequently and to avoid the disks spinning all the time, I leave on the C drive and you can use robocopy to automatically backup those at the end of the day or the week to the DATA partition.

I used to install games on the DATA partition without issues, but like ch100 and others I would advise to leave the programs on the C drive, as the lazy folks everywhere don’t seem to care to make sure what should work will. Just think about how you can’t really move apps from the store, MS had a feature to do it then blocked it because it caused issues, then I’m not sure they brought it back again. I guess they prefer to focus on Paint 3D than allowing lots of folks with small SSD to move their rarely used apps to the hard disk…

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Why not use symlinks?
mklink /J (old location) (new location)

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Microsoft has its own Storage Spaces which might come in handy in this type of hardware configuration. Probably the best chance of having everything just work with Win 10 Pro or Enterprise.

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Macrium Reflect can image UEFI as well, but since this is programs and data, not a Boot Drive, all you need to clone or image is the C: Windows partition.

The trouble is, you would also be cloning areas of Windows which the data and programs drive does not need. And this risks confusing Windows 10 as to which of the System Files to pay attention to.

Granted, that risk is small, but programs operating under Windows can do strange and unexpected things.

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Many risks to this approach, but not impossible.

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>RAID 0 is dangerous for most users

I disagree. That’s a bit like saying downloading software is dangerous for most users. It’s common lore and seems to smell right, but it doesn’t stand up to analysis or empirical observations.

SSDs are a fair bit more reliable than HDDs. For example, the ones I have sport a 2 million hour MTBF. And to mitigate the risk of hardware failure on ANY system, there’s backup – which everyone should be doing! SSDs have been a cornerstone of reliability in every system I’ve had that used them.

The cool part is this: RAID 0 truly multiplies SSD performance. Because of the near-zero latency, multitasking poses no problem at all – it simply doesn’t cause thrashing. Thus running EVERYTHING from one RAID 0 volume is not only viable, but can yield the highest performance.

In fact, it’s practically impossible to stand using a run-of-the-mill HDD-based PC after experiencing I/O transfer rates of a gigabyte+ per second with latencies of tens of microseconds.

I’ll counter with “It’s dangerous for most users to play games with relocating installed software on alternate drives”.

-Noel

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How much is your time and aggravation worth?

Maybe it’s worth upgrading that computer right now so that you have plenty of breathing room on the system volume?

A 1 TB SSD right now is only what, $300 ish?

-Noel

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Just for everyone to understand what this is about and choose according to circumstances.

RAID 0 extends the capacity, improves the Read performance, but any disk failure results in the loss of data. Backup is mandatory.

RAID 1 require usually 2 identical disks, while the usable capacity is that of a single disk. The performance is marginally lower than that of a single disk, but it has natural built-in redundancy, as the 2 disks are mirrored.

There are other common configurations, less used by end users.

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There was a utility wdidle3 (and there are few other variations for different WD hardware) used to tune that sort of sleep issues. I got familiar with it due to a known problem with the Green series.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hacking-wd-greens-and-reds-with-wdidle3-exe.18171/
http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=113
http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/
The Black series, being the professional version, should not have this issue though, but based on what you say, WD took steps to mitigate exactly the same problem for those disks.

Good info about REFS, I should give it a try because I avoided it until now in favour of the time tested NTFS.

My reasons for insisting on keeping the software installation on C: drive are more practical than functional. Sometimes there is a need to split the disks, mostly in the case of virtualisation but it happens in the “old” physical world and having services on D: or other drive can cause start-up problems, random errors and so on. Backup/imaging is made easier with all software on C:

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Just be aware that there are limitations to REFS that might make an enterprise customer not happy, like no disk quotas, file level encryption and disk compression.

For me, at home, and at the medium-sized company I manage, none of them matter. I run an NTFS main disk and the REFS on two hard disks in mirror for data. No need for any Intel RAID. The mirroring is done in software by Windows and is in theory compatible with any PC running the appropriate version of Windows.

Also, I think back in the days when I read about it, REFS was offering a bad performance with some RAID levels other than mirror. But for just a simple mirror that mimics the Intel RAID 1 + protection against bit rot, it seems like it works well. If I am not mistaken, it is a bit of a hidden feature in that it has been ported from Windows Server, but never really marketed for home/power users on the desktop, although its benefits seems to be worth trying it.

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If you get a larger drive, as I recommended, you need the whole thing, not just the C: partition.

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So many comments and no real answer yet. So here you go.

Go to ‘Control Panel > System and Security >System > Advanced system settings > Environmental variables…’
For the programs and setting you should define %appdata% (where the application settings are stored) and %programfiles% (where you install the programs).
To do this click on ‘New variable’ and set their path.

For example to move Program Files to the D: drive add these system variables:
(1) Variable: PROGRAMFILES(X86)
Value: D:Program Files (x86)

(2) Variable: PROGRAMFILES
Value: D:Program Files

And move Appdata to the D: drive add this user variable:
(3) Variable: APPDATA
Value: D:Appdata%USERPROFILE%

After you have done it, you can move your folders to the new location (however when you change, Windows will ask you whether it should copy them automatically).
By opening Explorer and typing %appdata% or %programfiles%, you can confirm that it opens the right folder.
For the other available environmental variables, please look at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd560744%28WS.10%29.aspx

I hope it helps.
Kind regards, anonymous

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“you’re far better off having programs installed to the boot drive.”
Please don’t spread this nonsense. Even the last “it is on the outer edge of the hard drive so it is faster to access” argument is gone with SSDs.
On the top of that, it makes data recovery much-much harder. I have no idea what is your source, but I wouldn’t trust those repair guys again.

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That takes care of the environment variables, but not all programs cooperate.

Or do the major ones?

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Yes, most installers/programs use environment variables.

The ones who don’t, usually don’t install in the Program Files directory by default.
As for AppData, it has to use environment variables to find user-specific directories.

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This is in theory. Woody is right and this was a big issue when Microsoft changed the default locations of folders in the user profiles starting with Vista/Server 2008. There are still mainstream programs which do not follow the established (by Microsoft as designer of the OS) rules.

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Funduc’s Application Mover program promises to move an installed program, in toto, to another install path or drive without reinstallation, handling things like registry references automatically. I installed it but never had a chance to use it before the trial period ended when I first started splitting application installs between my small SSD and my large HDD (never had a problem with this setup, btw; not sure what all the hub-bub is about).

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‘As others with legitimate PC repair knowledge have recommended you’re far better off having programs installed to the boot drive.’

So you are saying that if you have over 20 years experience in IT/ Hardware/ Repairs and configuration it’s not legitimate?

It’s so EASY to critisize and give advice that others have already submitted with a dig at what you THINK is wrong.

Insulting, cowardly and downright rudeness by Ed hiding behind his computer!

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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OK, guys. (I assume you’re both guys.) Let’s cap it off at this.

Both of you have valid points of view. There are ongoing debates about this and a zillion other topics in the computer realm. Folks who are watching should be aware that we have Capulets and Montagues and sometimes their opinions clash.

But let’s keep the back-and-forth focused on technology, not on personality, OK?

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Well put.

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Well, you could copy the folder (with permissions) where the software is installed to the other drive, then replace the (original) folder on the SSD with a symbolic link to a folder on the other drive. The software would still think it is where you installed it (no need to repair the software install or edit the registry).

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I am imagining that might make backing up the volume, well, interesting.

-Noel

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Since the installed software spans two drives, backup both drives… You may as well just pretend that the other drive is nothing more than another partition that you have software installed to.

If you are backing up file by file while the OS is booted, well, you don’t need to back up any programs since you aren’t making a working backup of them anyway.

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