{"id":1094,"date":"2008-05-01T13:09:25","date_gmt":"2008-05-01T18:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2008-05-01T13:09:25","modified_gmt":"2008-05-01T18:09:25","slug":"a-computer-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/01\/a-computer-conundrum\/","title":{"rendered":"A Computer Conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, I’ve filled up my hard drive. It’s inevitable, really – I tend to keep everything, and my music, picture, and video collections are quite… extensive.<\/p>\n

What’s sad is that I bought my computer a little over a year ago, and I distinctly remember remaking that its 160 GB hard drive should be “big enough to last quite a while.”<\/p>\n

Ha!<\/p>\n

But that’s not the question I’m struggling with. I’ve bought a new 500 GB SATA Seagate hard drive, and it will arrive in a few days. The question is, what do I do once I get it? The way I see it, I have two basic options:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Use a tool like GParted<\/a> to copy my existing partition onto the new drive, expand it to fill the available extra space, and set the new drive to be the primary drive and boot of of it. This has the benefit of duplicating my data – effectively making a backup of it – and when I’m done and satisfied, I can wipe the old drive and use it for extra storage. The downside is that Windows partitions don’t like to be resized – and the process takes a long time, especially on bigger drives. Switching the drives around will also take some time as well.<\/li>\n
  2. Use Windows’ built-in support for “directory junctions” to basically “junction” the new hard drive to an empty folder on my computer. I would probably do some finagling and “junction” the “My Documents” folder to the new drive. The effect of this would be that anything in the “My Documents” folder would actually be on the new drive, although from my point of view it would just be a normal folder on my C: drive. (As you may have suspected, it’s the “My Documents” folder that takes up most of my hard drive space.) This has the benefit of being relatively straightforward to do (although I’ll have to move things around temporarily, as you must junction to an empty<\/em> folder) and it won’t mess up my existing file\/folder hierarchy (no having to switch to a new drive letter or anything). The downside is that I’ll be devoting an entire 500 GB hard drive to just<\/em> my “My Documents” folder, which seems somehow… wasteful.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, basically, the decision is – copy the entire Windows partition (the “C:” drive) and fiddle around with re-sizing partitions (can be risky), or just devote the entire new hard drive to just one folder through directory junctions.<\/p>\n

    Although, I suppose I could split the new hard drive into different sized partitions, and junction them to key places on the old hard drive where space is tight.<\/p>\n

    If you have any suggestions for me, or if you’d like to share what you’ve done under similar circumstances, feel free to post in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Once again, I’ve filled up my hard drive. It’s inevitable, really – I tend to keep everything, and my music, picture, and video collections are quite… extensive. What’s sad is that I bought my computer a little over a year ago, and I distinctly remember remaking that its 160 GB hard drive should be “big… Continue reading A Computer Conundrum<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-technology","tag-computers","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-hE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":522,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/06\/04\/one-gigabyte-drives\/","url_meta":{"origin":1094,"position":0},"title":"One Gigabyte Drives","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: \"What would you do with a gigabyte drive?\" Answer: \"Doublespace it!\"","rel":"","context":"In "Pictures"","block_context":{"text":"Pictures","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3390,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/03\/26\/some-completely-pointless-benchmarks\/","url_meta":{"origin":1094,"position":1},"title":"Some Completely Pointless Benchmarks","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Just for fun, I timed how long it takes to start up my desktop computer and my netbook. Guess which one won?","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3860,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2012\/04\/10\/breathing-new-life-into-an-old-netbook\/","url_meta":{"origin":1094,"position":2},"title":"Breathing New Life into an Old Netbook","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Lately I had been getting a bit frustrated with the performance of my old netbook, so I decided it was time for an upgrade to a SSD.","rel":"","context":"In "Gadgets"","block_context":{"text":"Gadgets","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/gadgets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"SSD drive icon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2012\/04\/Ssd-slick-drive-256-150x150.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1108,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/12\/computer-drama\/","url_meta":{"origin":1094,"position":3},"title":"Computer Drama","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So, my new 500 GB hard drive arrived the other day. Thus began the 3-part geek tragedy that accompanies any computer upgrade. First off, let me say that it's been a while since I've done this. The last time I installed a new hard drive in my computer, Ultra DMA\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hard Drive","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/05\/2282011834_86ab2eaa11_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2881,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/01\/07\/new-computer-time-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":1094,"position":4},"title":"New Computer Time, Again","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for me to upgrade my computer (again) - and the decision on what to get hasn't gotten any easier!","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3101,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/05\/31\/another-computer-conundrum-a-computer-for-mom\/","url_meta":{"origin":1094,"position":5},"title":"Another Computer Conundrum: A Computer for MOM","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I face another computer conundrum: what sort of computer to get for my mom, a casual user (as opposed to me, the power user).","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}