A few years ago, I wrote about how to offload data from size-limited but speedy SSDs to HDDs using mklink. I wrote that:
Some useful things to take off of your SSD are:
● Microsoft Office's MSOCache
● The Windows Installer folder
● Unnecessary Windows driver DLLs
There are a couple of new tools that can also be used.
SteamMover
Once you have installed a program, Steam Mover can be used to move it to another hard drive or permanently attached flash storage. It moves a program and creates symbolic links so that references to the old location point to the new location seamlessly.
CubicExplorer
Cubic Explorer is an alternative to the Windows default file explorer, offering tabs, a simplified right-click menu, and several other features. It also has a built in symbolic link generator, so files can be moved, a link can be generated, and the link can be cut and pasted to the original location.
How to Combine Symbolic Links with the Cloud
Symbolic links can be used for an easier cloud-syncing experience. With so many tools, it can be difficult to keep track of data, and having multiple copies of data everywhere wastes space and can be confusing.
In my case, I have at least 30 GBs of storage from OneDrive and Google Drive. OneDrive is built into Windows 8, and Google Drive is useful for syncing files to the internet. I have my GDrive set as a folder inside OneDrive, which provides both data security and data availability. Note that this setup requires that the GDrive folder be stored offline using the appropriate OneDrive setting, or GDrive cannot find or sync any data.
I store my teaching materials on a flash drive for using at work. I need a copy at home, but I also store them online for my teaching website. To simplify all this, I set my website to pull files directly from GDrive. I store my teaching files on a folder stored locally in GDrive (and nested in OneDrive), and I use symbolic links to put this folder in an easy to access location, such as my desktop. Then, I use FreeFileSync to sync files between the desktop link and my flash drive.
There’s some redundancy there, for sure, but it’s a solution that reduces the amount of necessary management.