How To Move 'stuff' From Small Ssd To My Data Disc To Free Up Space?

Can someone tell me how to go about this? I'm running win7 Home 64 and my ssd drive is a 120Gb with only 1.57 Gb free, whereas my 500Gb data drive has 350+Gb free. I've moved music and photo's and My Documents but what else can I do and how do I stop my SSD getting so full when I don't think I'm saving/installing much at all? Thanks for any (simple to follow!) assistance given.

 

I assume your SSD drive is setup as your main drive. I would recommend running one of the following programs to determine what files are taken up most of the space on that drive. Then I can help you you can move or copy them to the 500GB drive.

 

Sorry, I accidentally hit post reply before completing my response see below

I assume your SSD drive is setup as your main drive. I would recommend running one of the following programs to determine what files are taken up most of the space on that drive. Then I can help you move or copy them to the 500GB drive. It sounds like you want to change the location of these user folders rather than just copy them to the Data drive. Is that correct?

https://windirstat.net/
http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/

 

Hi Techjourney,
Yes my SSD is setup as my main drive and yes I would like to free up space on it by moving files/folders to my larger Data drive. I have run both of these suggested programs with the following results:


Is this what you need to advise me further?
Thanks,
Bob

 

Yes, it looks like most the space is being taken up by you user folders such as My Documents, Downloads, Pictures, etc. I also notice something showing as <Files> Above Rycycle Bin folder on the tree in the WinDir Stat program. If you click on the + plus symbol and open it up it will provide the details of these as well. Let’s move your User files first though and go from there. Please let me know if you need more guidance on any of these steps.

The safest way to move these folders is by using the following steps

1. Open the Start menu and click your user name to open the User folder
2. Right-click the personal folder you want to redirect to another location.
3. Select “Properties”
4. Click the tab “Location”
5. The dialog box shown below will open
6. Click the button “Move”
7. An Explorer dialog “Select a destination” will open
8. Browse to the location where you want to redirect this folder. You can select another location on this computer, another drive attached to this computer, or another computer on the network
9. Click the folder where you want to store the files (not the root of a drive)
10. Click the button “Select Folder”
11. Click “OK”
12. In the dialog that appears, click “Yes” to move all the files to the new location.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/files/images/pc_freeware/techtips/my-videos-properties.png

 

Thanks again. I've opened the <Files> that you refer to and this is what's in it:

 

Ok these two files are system files that you should leave alone. However, if you don’t use hibernate mode much or at all then it can be disabled or reduced in size by using the following steps. Also open the the details under the Windows folder to see if we can move or remove anything in there.

Step 1: Open elevated Command Prompt by typing CMD in Start menu search filed, right-click on Command Prompt entry and then click Run as administrator.

right-click on the Start button (in Windows 10), and then click Command Prompt (admin) to open Command Prompt as administrator.

http://windows.intowindows.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ReduceHibernationFileSizeinWindows7_thumb.jpg

Step 2: In the command prompt, type the following command and hit enter.

To reduce the hibernate file size use:
Powercfg –h –size percentsize

To turn off hibernate use:
powercfg.exe /hibernate off; or on to re-enable


http://windows.intowindows.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ReduceHiberfilefilesizeinWindows7guide_thumb.jpg

In the above command, replace percentsize with your value (for example, 60%), but it cannot be smaller than 50.

Step 3: Exit the Command Prompt and you are done!

 

In this previous post "Step 1: Open elevated Command Prompt by typing CMD in Start menu search filed, right-click on Command Prompt entry and then click Run as administrator.

right-click on the Start button (in Windows 10), and then click Command Prompt (admin) to open Command Prompt as administrator." when I type CMD in the Search field I don't get what you are expecting. I'm running Windows 7 Home 64bit os. So your help doesn't work for me in this case?

 

When you type cmd in search you'll get cmd.
Right-click cmd and then click Run as administrator.

 

Thanks Eldon, got it now!

 

I have now, using this advice, moved all (that had a 'Location' tab) to my Data disc. I now have 10.5Gb free on my SSD. Do you think I should go further?

 

What is the size of the winsxs folder (in the Windows folder)?
Do you use a program like CCleaner?

 

That doesn't sound like enough free space. If that SSD is 150gb and you only have 10.5gb that's on the absolute borders of free space. You really need a minimum of 15% free space for optimum performance.
I would use the free MajorGeeks hosted program called Tree Size on the SSD - which will give you very detailed information of what is stored there - and move everything that is not system and security files to the data drive.

 

I apologize, I missed your reply. However, it looks like you received the help you needed to move forward. As has been mentioned you may want to cleanup the winsxs folder see link below. Also look at any apps or programs that can be removed.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/clean-winsxs-folder-to-save-space

 

Using Disk Cleanup on the SSD drive - in its two parts - is by far the easiest way of removing unneeded non-program files. The first scan is general, highlight each item and it tells you what they are. The second run is in the lower part of the window titled 'Clean up System Files' same as above applies it tells you what each section is as you highlight them.

 

Thanks to you all!

After following your advice, I now have 15Gb free on my SSD. Success!!

 

While having recovered 4.5gb of extra space on a 150gb SSD is better than nothing, it is not remotely a success. That still leaves your SSD with much less than the needed free space for optimum performance. I'm sure that Tree Size would have listed a lot more data that does not need to be on the SSD.

 

I have a 120Gb SSD drive, and rather than the 150Gb you seem to think I have? This gives me close to the 15% free that has been talked about, but I will take on board your comment regarding using Tree Size. Thanks again.

 

I misread the original post. I have a 250gb SSD using Windows 10 64 bit, on this system, and it currently has just 76.8gb used space that is the whole system and every single program - it also has about 10gb of data I could easily transfer to my Data drive.
So your 105gb of data on the SSD still seems higher than needed. 18gb is the minimum free space you would need for optimum performance on a 120gb drive.

 

As you have already moved your files, you now need to look at your programs.

• Uninstall those you don't really need.
• Check if you can install the programs that take up a lot of space on the 500GB HDD.
• If the former isn't possible, check for portable versions of your programs that you can then 'install' on the HDD.

FYI I have a 100GB+ program I run from an external HDD.

 

How do I do this?

 

Eldon, how do I do this?

 

Don't uninstall and then try to re-install programs on the HDD en masse.

Instead, check with the publisher whether you can install their programs on a drive other than the drive where Windows resides.
Also check for portable versions of your programs that can run from (almost) anywhere.

Maybe we can help...
What programs do you have?

 

Eldon, I've just realised I hadn't answered this question. I've looked at the winsxs folder (using Treesize) and it is 11.9Gb in size. I have used CCleaner in the past but it's not presently installed on my machine.

 

Here are the instructions to reduce the size of the winsxs folder.
https://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-your-winsxs-folder-on-windows-7-or-8/
FYI You must have Service Pack 1 installed.

Here's the portable version of CCleaner - you can run it from a flash drive.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ccleaner_portable.html

 

Thanks, I'll try this and see how it goes.

 

O.K. so now I've got 30Gb free on my 120Gb SSD having followed the advice from Techjourney, MaxTurner and Eldon so thanks to you for this help.

I now feel satisfied, but should I?

 

Up from 1.57 GB. That's good.