Over-full C drive

[Gyn_Paul]

My PC has 2 large SATA drives, partitioned C: (Root), D: (Backup) on one, and E: (Recovery), and F: (Data) on the other. I now have so many large programs hosted on the C-drive that it's in danger of falling over, and is running very slow, and I really need to share them around the drives a bit.

Unfortunately I have the disks for very few of these, so uninstalling/reinstalling is not really an option. Does anyone have or know of a program which will allow me to do this?

Or failing that, something which will enable me to manage the registry entries if I shift them manually?

p

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Would repartioning your c drive to give you more space on it be an option? If so, Partion Magic would be your best bet. You can resize partions on it very easily.

[AnOther]

You might be able to recover some space by using WinDirStat which gives you a graphical view of your drive. I'll guarantee you'll be surprised at just how much disposable junk you'll find.

[img]http://windirstat.info/images/windirstat.jpg[/img]

Also, depending on how much RAM you have, you could run without a Swap file which will release several hundred Mb. All my machines have 2Gb and show no discernable difference in performance with or without it.

Whilst there are utlities which can transfer an installed programme

from one machines C:\ drive to anothers I know of non which will shift a

programme to a different drive letter. Partition Magic may be your best

bet as L&R says.

[briwy]

   

Another option may be to buy another even larger drive as they are so cheap now and use a program like Norton Ghost to copy your existing drive onto the new one. This will make an identical copy of the drive so you stand no chance of losing anything or having to reinstall any programs.

I have done this a few times without any problems and it also gives you a complete backup of the drive should it ever fail.

[Gyn_Paul]

Thank you all, the re-partitioning was a really good idea. I've swiped an extra 40Gb from the adjacent D: drive and it certainly spends less time thinking about every operation. However Firefox still keeps hanging randomly which I rather hoped was something which would be cured. Never mind, you can't have everything.

Maplins 750Gb ext HD on order !

p

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I had major memory issues with Firefox that I couldn't resolve, so ended up going over to Opera which I find nicer than Firefox anyway and uses much less resources.

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

As things are still not perfect, this is probably teaching granny to suck eggs but have you

a) de-fragged all your drives

b) done a full-scale virus and malware scan

c) moved your virtual memory swap file to your second physical drive -- sorry Erniey, but some apps do require one

d) shoved in as much physical RAM as it will take

?

Also, have you checked if any of those apps have their default data file folder within their instalation folder on C?

Finally, is your security suite the best one for you? Some of them can cause major performance hits, especially if not configured correctly.

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="Albert the InfoGipsy"]

As things are still not perfect, this is probably teaching granny to suck eggs but have you

a) de-fragged all your drives      Yep, done that

b) done a full-scale virus and malware scan    Sheduled automatically each night

c) moved your virtual memory swap file to your second physical drive -- sorry Erniey, but some apps do require one     Ah now that sounds like a goer. What do I need to rewrite/edit to redirect to the 2nd drive?

d) shoved in as much physical RAM as it will take   Full to the brim (2gb)

?

Also, have you checked if any of those apps have their default data file folder within their instalation folder on C? Yep: nothing but the programmes themselves live on the C: drive with the exception of Word and Emails

Finally, is your security suite the best one for you? Some of them can cause major performance hits, especially if not configured correctly.      I know what you mean. I won't use Norton for that reason; I'm no longer a young man; my time left here is too limited to be waiting for Norton to finish inspecting every file on the machine before allowing every single keystroke to go ahead. With my current security, delays haven't been a problem up to now.

Interesting thoughts, Thanks Albert.

[/quote]

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

Gyn_Paul, search Help for "change the size of the virtual memory paging file".

The place you do it is Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Performance Settings > Advanced Tab > Virtual Memory Change

You can set it manually to live on any partition you like. It used to be recommended for maximum performance (not by Microsoft) to fix the swap file size by setting the max & min sizes to the same value . I don't know if it helps, but I can see the logic.

If you look at Help on "Managing your computer's performance" you'll see that it recommends to avoid having a pagefile on the same drive as the system files. I'm pretty sure that means use a different physical drive to reduce thrashing.

[AnOther]

I don't disagree that a Swap File may be beneficial or even neccessary for some memory intensive applications but I think for the average Joe these are few and far between. It's possible some games may need it but as I don't play them I couldn't comment further.

I can say that with 2gb of RAM and no Swap File I personally experience no degredation in performance in normal day to day use.

The default location for the Swap File is C:\ of course but if you want to put it somewhere else then a second drive is ideal. As Albert says the one place it never be put is on a different partition on the same drive as it will actually reduce performance because the drive will have to work more to access it.

Sizewise it used to be said that the Swap File should be at least 1.5 times the installed RAM but in all honesty I think that whilst this might have been valid when 128mb of RAM was considered lavish these days, where 1 or 2gb is standard, it's something of a redundant legacy.

The proof of the pudding is to do away with it and see if you notice any difference, you can always put it back.

Finally, and I'll admit this is a only for the truly paranoid, the Swap File can be a potential security risk because, by definition, it contains information which as been passed to it from the programmes you use and using simple tools it can be read and information possibly extracted.