Moving Userprofile out from system partition, redirected by junction/symlinkd

[Poutnik]

Hello,

I have an idea to copy my c:\users\user profile
out of system partiton
( logged from account with admin rights )
and create redirecting junction/symlinkd to the new location.

Do you think it is save/good solution ?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an idea to copy my c:\users\user profile
out of system partiton
( logged from account with admin rights )
and create redirecting junction/symlinkd to the new location.

Do you think it is save/good solution ?

Solution to what? Why do you want to do this?

 

[Poutnik]

Solution to what? Why do you want to do this?

For similar reasons as many people divide disk
to system and data partitions.
For user data I always try to avoid profile as much as I can.

1) As far as vista instalation is greedy, it will safe some space.
2) reguler system backups will be smaller.
2) In case of system restore form backup, my settings will not be
rolled up back too. There is much fiddling with combining data
from good backup and from backup before restore.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

For similar reasons as many people divide disk
to system and data partitions.

Most people who do that do it for a very poor reason, as far as I'm
concerned. They do it to protect their data in the event of needing to
reinstall Windows.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it's almost invariably
done as a substitute for backup. If you are backing up to external
media regularly, there is no need to protect your data in a separate
partition. And if you are not backing up regularly, and think of
separating data in a separate partition as protection for it, you are
just kidding yourself. It leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss
of the original and backup to many of the most common dangers: hard
disk crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer.

 

[Poutnik]

Most people who do that do it for a very poor reason, as far as I'm
concerned. They do it to protect their data in the event of needing to
reinstall Windows.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it's almost invariably
done as a substitute for backup. If you are backing up to external
media regularly, there is no need to protect your data in a separate
partition. And if you are not backing up regularly, and think of
separating data in a separate partition as protection for it, you are
just kidding yourself. It leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss
of the original and backup to many of the most common dangers: hard
disk crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer.

Well, it is a big difference,
if I am creating regular system partition backup image
of 35 GB, or of 500 GB.

Also, if some frequently used data are on other physical disk,
similarly to pagefile, it can speedup the system.

I use great free Macrium Reflect backup,
that allows to backup only whole partition.

And I do backup my data on other disks.
Not all, only valuable.

 

[Poutnik]

Most people who do that do it for a very poor reason, as far as I'm
concerned. They do it to protect their data in the event of needing to
reinstall Windows.

There is another reason

keeping system compact and fast,
being on fast outer disk tracks
with short access time between tracks.

It can be done, but only partially and temporarily
by good disk defragmentation/optimization utilities.

Fastdata can be on other disks.
On data partition on the same physical disk as system
will be e.g. only seldom accessed data
without need of the fast tranfer rates.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Well, it is a big difference,
if I am creating regular system partition backup image
of 35 GB, or of 500 GB.

Also, if some frequently used data are on other physical disk,
similarly to pagefile, it can speedup the system.

I use great free Macrium Reflect backup,
that allows to backup only whole partition.

And I do backup my data on other disks.
Not all, only valuable.

Please note that I did *not* say that there is never a good reason for
separating the system and data on different partitions. What I said
was "Most people who do that do it for a very poor reason."

 

[Poutnik]

Please note that I did *not* say that there is never a good reason for
separating the system and data on different partitions. What I said
was "Most people who do that do it for a very poor reason."

I cannot disagree.
I was not just sure what reason you have supposed here

I know your name for quite long time from NG,
and evaluate myself whatever you say in posts.