Question Seperate drive for OS and Applications

[dan2me76]

I was wondering if there is a way I can have one drive that is only for my Operating System(s) and one drive to store all my applications? I have reached a point where I no longer have room on my C drive and I am interested in running a duel boot system so I can start learning how to use Linux. If that is possible, please let me know how. Thank you in advance.

 

[DSzymborski]

Yes. In fact, most builders do it this way. Install your applications on a secondary drive.

 

[USAFRet]

I was wondering if there is a way I can have one drive that is only for my Operating System(s) and one drive to store all my applications? I have reached a point where I no longer have room on my C drive and I am interested in running a duel boot system so I can start learning how to use Linux. If that is possible, please let me know how. Thank you in advance.

What size/make/model is your current C drive?

There is little need to have "applications" on a different drive. Apps don't really take up that much space.
But all your other files on different drives? Absolutely.
Especially VM's.

My current main system has 6x drives.
One for the OS and applications. Others, for other stuff.
Video/Photo/CAD/games/etc...

 

[DSzymborski]

As USAFRet notes, you can still keep your most used applications in the OS drive.

 

[dan2me76]

What size/make/model is your current C drive?

There is little need to have "applications" on a different drive. Apps don't really take up that much space.
But all your other files on different drives? Absolutely.
Especially VM's.

My current main system has 6x drives.
One for the OS and applications. Others, for other stuff.
Video/Photo/CAD/games/etc...

My current drive has 109 GB free of 463 GB. That is just C drive itself, not including the other crazy partitions that Windows 10 (or should I say, my "OEM" has created. I do have a reserved paging file included in this as I only have 16 GB of RAM and can't add any more to this PC. The drive is a Samsung SSD. I don't know what the model number is.

 

[USAFRet]

My current drive has 109 GB free of 463 GB. That is just C drive itself, not including the other crazy partitions that Windows 10 (or should I say, my "OEM" has created. I do have a reserved paging file included in this as I only have 16 GB of RAM and can't add any more to this PC.

OK...a 500GB drive. No problem.

Do you have any other drives installed in this system?

Install and run either WinDirStat, or WizTree.

Run as Administrator, selecting only the drive in question.
Post a screencap here.

 

[USAFRet]

Apps vs data...

My little quadrotor will generate a file almost 2GB per 20 minute flight. Every time. I have dozens.
The application I use to manage those vids, Corel VideoStudio, is only 1.5GB.


Applications are not the main space sucker.

 

[dan2me76]

OK...a 500GB drive. No problem.

Do you have any other drives installed in this system?

Install and run either WinDirStat, or WizTree.

Run as Administrator, selecting only the drive in question.
Post a screencap here.

I created the smallest possible screen cap file and this forum will not let me upload it.

 

[USAFRet]

I created the smallest possible screen cap file and this forum will not let me upload it.

Sadly, Toms does not natively host images.
Upload your pic to imgur.com, and post the link here.

 

[dan2me76]

Sadly, Toms does not natively host images.
Upload your pic to imgur.com, and post the link here.

Ok, here's the link

https://imgur.com/mIe8BjY

View: https://imgur.com/mIe8BjY

 

[Wolfshadw]

Just an FYI, even though you install the applications onto the separate drive, some of the application information is still written to the main OS drive (not much). This means you wouldn't be able to move the separate drive to another computer and still run those applications.

-Wolf sends

 

[USAFRet]

Ok, here's the link

And the big block of blue things on the left... .RPF files.
What are those? That is taking up major space on your drive.

Seems to be GTA related?

 

[dan2me76]

Just an FYI, even though you install the applications onto the separate drive, some of the application information is still written to the main OS drive (not much). This means you wouldn't be able to move the separate drive to another computer and still run those applications.

-Wolf sends

Honestly, this is just a temporary fix hoping I can get through another year with this computer while I gather the parts I need to build the PC I want. I won't have this problem after that because this will become my media/work/research computer and the PC I'm building will be specifically for gaming giving me back more than half of this drive.

 

[dan2me76]

And the big block of blue things on the left... .RPF files.
What are those? That is taking up major space on your drive.

Seems to be GTA related?

Those are files that specifically deal with 2 games that I play. Those 2 games take up probably half the space on my drive. Those are the 2 applications I want to get on their own drive. I'm not sure I care about the rest of the Applications being on C drive, and in about a year, this won't be a problem for me because I am building a dedicated gaming PC.

 

[USAFRet]

Honestly, this is just a temporary fix hoping I can get through another year with this computer while I gather the parts I need to build the PC I want.

So add a new drive, and move a bunch of data to it.

 

[dan2me76]

So add a new drive, and move a bunch of data to it.

So if I just take the two folders with the program files for those two games and put them on their own drive and then just change the desktop shortcuts accordingly, they should still work without a problem? Because that will save me close to 140GB on C drive.

 

[USAFRet]

So if I just take the two folders with the program files for those two games and put them on their own drive and then just change the desktop shortcuts accordingly, they should still work without a problem? Because that will save me close to 140GB on C drive.

NO.
You can't move applications like that.
It is far more than just the shortcuts.


Are these games via Steam?

 

[dan2me76]

NO.
You can't move applications like that.
It is far more than just the shortcuts.


Are these games via Steam?

No. One is a Blizzard studio game and one is a Rockstar studio game. Steam and all it's stuff will remain on C drive.

 

[USAFRet]

No. One is a Blizzard studio game and one is a Rockstar studio game. Steam and all it's stuff will remain on C drive.

Steam games can be moved, irrespective of where the Steam client is. There is a specific procedure for this.
I believe Blizzard games can be as well, but I do not know the specifics of how to do that.

But is is NOT just moving the folder between drives.

 

[dan2me76]

Steam games can be moved, irrespective of where the Steam client is. There is a specific procedure for this.
I believe Blizzard games can be as well, but I do not know the specifics of how to do that.

But is is NOT just moving the folder between drives.

And the difficulty is getting a hold of Blizzard as their customer service isn't what it used to be. I haven't tried to get a hold of Rockstar yet, but if I remember correctly, it asks you upon install where you want to install it. I'm probably going to make a partition on one of my media drives to try it out (knowing what Blizzard App and WoW folders I need to move), Change my desktop shortcuts, and see if it will work. If that works, then I'll spend the $40 to get Tamppkon 4 Port SATA III PCIe 3.0 X1 Controller Card, PCI Express to SATA 3.0 6G, Marvell 88SE9215 so I have the extra SATA port I need for another SSD which I already have.

 

[dan2me76]

And the difficulty is getting a hold of Blizzard as their customer service isn't what it used to be. I haven't tried to get a hold of Rockstar yet, but if I remember correctly, it asks you upon install where you want to install it. I'm probably going to make a partition on one of my media drives to try it out (knowing what Blizzard App and WoW folders I need to move), Change my desktop shortcuts, and see if it will work. If that works, then I'll spend the $40 to get Tamppkon 4 Port SATA III PCIe 3.0 X1 Controller Card, PCI Express to SATA 3.0 6G, Marvell 88SE9215 so I have the extra SATA port I need for another SSD which I already have.

I just found this post from two years ago from an Blizzard Admin forum:

You can indeed install games on other drives without issue, keeping the Blizzard App itself on your OS drive is done to prevent problems with OS permissions. The App manages the game installs, so permissions are all fine even if you install the game on another drive.
One thing I will note is that mechanical hard drives don’t have the same kind of performance as SSDs, so you will likely run into longer loading times, or in-game objects taking a little longer to show up.


So I think I can at least do that and save myself 80GB on this drive.

 

[USAFRet]

Install on a different drive, yes.
Move currently installed games in the Blizzard platform? Probably, but I do not know the specific procedure.

 

[dan2me76]

Install on a different drive, yes.
Move currently installed games in the Blizzard platform? Probably, but I do not know the specific procedure.

I have it figured out. I can just move the game file folder over to the other drive. The Blizzard app will find it. Rockstar has a utility to move their games to another drive. Thank you for all your help. I think I have a plan now.