Moving some of systems folder to another drive in windows

Question

Situation:

• System on: Windows 10 20H2
• I've two physical drives:
  • SSD 128 GiB (avail: 118 GiB, free: 15 GiB);
  • HDD 1 TiB (avail: ??, free: 490 GiB)
• Partitioning structure:
  • C: (SSD)
  • other "drives" (HDD)
• I've two users: one with admin privilages, other without
• There're several folders like:
  • Progfiles: "Program Files" (21 GiB) , "Program Files (x86)" (~4 GiB)
  • UserDocs: "Users/USER/{Downloads, Pictures, Desktop, ...}" (~4 GiB)
  • AppData: "Users/USER/AppData" (20 GiB)
  • ?? : for the apps via MS Store (?? B)
  • Total of above: ~49 GiB

Problem:

• I am maxed out on C drive, and its structure has gone all messy

I want to:

• reinstall the windows (10), and repartition so that only the default stuff stays in C drive
• and move the ProgFiles & AppData in a separate drive
• and move the UserData in another separate drive

Research & other options

• Some articles i stumbled upon: but felt a bit twisty: a b c
• Reading several other answers here: 1 2 3
• ... seems it's not possible
• so, any other advices?

• should i install the OS on a HDD?
• does linux support doing this? i have read that it doesnt contain drives, but partitions - which are shown like different folders - regardless, can the corresponding folders to above mentioned in linux be set to some partition on HDD, while the main system stays on SSD

Answer 1

You can use a symbolic link.

1. Create the folder where you want it
2. Create a Symbolic Link to it on Drive C.

For example

mklink /d e:\MyFolder c:\Users\User1\Documents

mklink Documentation

I have only used this to shift my Thunderbird folder for emails. It should work for any folder, but it is always possible that it may not work for some system folders.

Answer 2

reinstall the windows (10), and repartition so that only the default stuff stays in C drive

Default stuff is Windows, Program Files and stuff in USERS like AppData.

and move the ProgFiles & AppData in a separate drive

No - do not move these files to a different drive.

and move the UserData in another separate drive

You can easily relocate My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos and so on to another drive.

Best solution here since you are going to reinstall Windows is to get a much larger drive.

Organizing bits of Windows into different drives is normally not a good idea.

A very good rule of thumb to follow: Don't move what you do not understand really well.