Transferring games and programs to new SSD?

Ashtonhz8907

Honorable
Jul 10, 2013
11
0
10,510
I've decided to add a 128GB mSATA SSD to my laptop since I have a spot free to improve performance. Currently my main drive is a 1TB HDD with 500GB used and probably about 250GB of that is games and applications. I've read to clone my HDD I need to be able to fit all of my main drive onto my new one. (is this correct?)

My problem is a lot of what I have are Steam games and Origin games that I do not want to have to redownload over again along with a few digital applications.
I do not want it all on my new SSD but I would like to pick and choose some of the more demanding games/apps and copy to the SSD which would still be nauseating to download again on my speeds. Is there some way to do this without having to reinstall?

I will still have the 1TB HDD in my laptop and my plan was install Windows 8 to the SSD and delete it from my HDD, will my applications and games on the HDD still be usable if I do that? What steps can I take here?
 
Solution
When I was in a similar situation recently, I decided to move my most important game data to the SSD manually through use of symbolic links.

For that task, I picked up Link Shell Extension:
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

"Steam Mover" can be useful as well, since it automates the process creating links for and cloning the data to the SSD for you.

I'm not that good with this stuff, to be honest, but it wasn't that hard to learn... and it helped me make sure all my important game files were on the SSD before I was able to purchase a larger one.

fulle

Distinguished
May 31, 2008
968
0
19,010
When I was in a similar situation recently, I decided to move my most important game data to the SSD manually through use of symbolic links.

For that task, I picked up Link Shell Extension:
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

"Steam Mover" can be useful as well, since it automates the process creating links for and cloning the data to the SSD for you.

I'm not that good with this stuff, to be honest, but it wasn't that hard to learn... and it helped me make sure all my important game files were on the SSD before I was able to purchase a larger one.
 
Solution