SSD's HDD's Games and Junction points - instructions within

[badass]

My system currently has an Intel 160GB SSD and a WD 2TB Green HDD.
I made the decision to have the games on my HDD before installing the SSD as it would probably run out of space with all of my games. My current steam and Origin games add up to 215GB.
I notice that Battlefield 3 was really slow to load and that it was using 100% disk time and only getting 1MB/sec from the HDD and that made me decide to look into using a junction point for BF3 as it's 15GB only.

It's really simple to do, provided you're not scared of the command line. And you're on hexus so a bit of tinkering doesn't scare you, right?

First, I rebooted my PC to ensure there were no file locks.
Second, I renamed the E:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3 directory to battlefield 3.bak
Third, I created a folder on the C drive called junctions
4th, I copied the whole folder to c:\junctions and renamed it back to battlefield 3
5th, I checked the NTFS permissions on the folder on the E drive (right click the folder, click properties, then click security and make a note of all permissions listed) and made the permissions for the c:\junctions\battlefield 3 the same
6th, I opened an elevated command prompt (instructions below*)
7th, Typed : mklink /J "E:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3" "c:\junctions\battlefield 3"
8th, Played BF3. It was an order of magnitude faster to load everything.

The beauty of junction points is that they are invisible to any application using them. They should work with anything. The only thins is that they cannot redirect to a network location. Local disks only.

*there are loads of ways of opening an elevated command prompt.
One way is to press the Windows orb/start button, click all programs, click accessories, Right click command prompt, click run as administrator and OK the UAC prompt.

[GoNz0]

or you could do it the easy way and install link shell extension.

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks...kshellext.html

move the folder to its new location, right click the folder and pick link source then right click the original location and paste a symbolic link.

[watercooled]

There's a small utility which does basically the same thing but is made for ease of use, aimed at Steam games but usable for other stuff: http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover

[spoon_]

Oooh we already know how to use symbolic links ^^

For any *nix users out there this is bread and butter tbh.

[badass]

It didn't cross my mind that someone would have written a program to make that far simpler.
Steam mover in particular looks really good.

[GoNz0]

steam mover has noting on link shell extension as that work with everything

[Luckygiant]

My current steam and Origin games add up to 215GB.
I notice that Battlefield 3 was really slow to load and that it was using 100% disk time and only getting 1MB/sec from the HDD and that made me decide to look into using a junction point for BF3 as it's 15GB only.

I've got 128gb sata 2 drive that I run my games from, I think you'll be very impressed with the improvement in load times. It's amazing how long you think you must've waited beforehand (even though it's only 10 seconds, feels like an age)

[kalniel]

Now create a ramdisk and put the most commonly used files in that