Pointing folder to different disk
Say I have a D-drive and a folder SomeData. For performance reasons I would like the data in SomeData to be on a different harddisk (SSD), while keeping the paths intact.
So the file D:\SomeData\ImportantFile.txt would still be in that path, even though actually on a different disk.
Can I "mount" (?) a harddisk as a folder below another disk?
I use Win7 Ultimate and NTFS.
Yes, you can mount disks as folders using the Change drive letter and paths function in diskmgmt.msc
, or the mountvol
command-line tool. (But see below...)
However, even on the new disk, it is usually better to keep the files contained within a directory – to prevent it from becoming one big mess if you ever decide to use the second disk for anything else. This can be done using junctions or symbolic links – both will work fine; symlinks are recommended but they're supported only on Windows Vista and newer versions, while junctions also work on Windows 2000/XP.
To symlink your SomeData
to a different disk:
- Move the original directory to the new SSD drive. You must delete the original directory.
- Open an elevated command prompt.
-
Use the
mklink
utility to create a symbolic link with the same name and location as the original directory:C:\>mklink /d D:\SomeData Z:\SomeData
(where
Z:\
is your SSD andD:\
is the old drive)
On older Windows versions mklink
is not present, but the junction
utility from Sysinternals can be used to create junctions.