Moving a Directory to Storage Drive

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  1. Posts : 236
    Windows 10 Home
       #1

    Moving a Directory to Storage Drive


    I'm quite sure many people move a Directory to a Storage Drive so some software will act appropriately, like Pictures for instance. Some computers even come with an SSD and a Storage drive OOTB, but they don't put any Directories on the Storage Drive.

    My question is, how stable is it to move something like the Pictures Directory to a Storage Drive? I see how to do it online but don't know how stable it will be with windows 10 Feature Updates? I guess I'll need to try this myself asap but will some give me their experiences.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 42,734
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #2

    Assuming you are referring to using the Location tab
    a. Sometimes people make unfortunate mistakes using this, resulting in an almost irretrievable situation. (Bree spent days back and forth helping one such user- MS deemed it impossible). I.e. there's risk in using it.
    b. There are threads where, having used it, problems have emerged.

    Try searching this forum for e.g.
    Location tab
    relocate folders
    for examples.

    Also see comments after the tutorials on relocating these folders.

    My preference would be to leave them as they are, and create new library folders or libraries on the disk (see tutorials), or if you are the only user (no permission protection needed) then just create folders 'Pictures' 'Videos' etc for your personal use and use those, which is what I do.

    E.g.
    Folders are doubled and go to wrong location
    Two 'Music' and 'Pictures' folders in Explorer
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 236
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Like this
    How to Move Your Pictures Folder Location in Windows 10

    I don't really need to move files, this would be done on new setups, if that matters.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 42,734
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #4

    Thank you for your reply. I mentioned such a tutorial and am well aware of them.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 236
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #5

    I figured as much, but want to document all that I find here also. I will keep reading up on this and be back.
    I want to leave this particular entry from one of your links here also for me to look at later tonight.
    OneDrive created these duplicates
    This one from you was very good!
    Folders are doubled and go to wrong location
      My Computer

  6.   My Computers

  7.   My Computers


  8. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #8

    I've always relocated my data folders using the Location Tab and have never had an issue. My user data folders have survived multiple clean install of Windows 10.

    But, I do know that there is something inherently wrong with my Windows 10 computers because I've never had any major issue with any of the version upgrades either.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 9,765
    Mac OS Catalina
       #9

    I would not move any directories or folders, just the files like photos, video and music to another drive or even offline storage.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 1,750
    Windows 10 Pro
       #10

    bro67 said:
    I would not move any directories or folders, just the files like photos, video and music to another drive or even offline storage.
    I take a different approach, which has worked well for me for years. I 100% ignore all the "My files" and \user type directories on C:. I use multiple systems and I follow this discipline:

    C - Windows and Programs
    D - "most" data file
    E - media: photos, music, videos, fonts, etc.
    F - downloaded software installs (on some systems)

    This approach makes it easy to use Goodsync to keep folders and files in sync across systems.

    The problem with the \user folders is that the contain a mix of system-specific info about programs as well as "data files." It would be dangerous to try to sync a \user folder across systems.

    These days, I have SSDs in all my systems for C and D, but still use cheap-and-cheerful HDDs for E and F.
      My Computers


 

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