My SSD is full - help!

I would start with moving your pictures and music.

There are a few ways:

1. Use a program like windirstat to check what is taking your ssd space.

2. Delete anything unnecessary. If you do step 1, you will find that there is usually a lot of useless stuff laying around.

3. Move everything else that does not require an installation into the data disk. Whatever programs you can reinstall, do it on the data disk.

4. Minimize windows footprint. Reduce swap file size and shadowcopy to reasonable sizes. Ask for more info on those if you need to.

5. Use the dirty mklink trick. mklink is a windows trick that allows you to redirect a whole directory into another one. It is not a shortcut, the OS will treat the directory as if it was on the new address. Here is how you do it:

5.a) Choose a directory that takes a lot of space and you want to transfer into an HDD, but can't remove it from the SSD without breaking stuff. MOVE it into the desired location (don't worry, we'll get everything working). TAKE NOTE OF THE DIRECTORY YOUR STUFF WAS, you will will need to know that later on.

5.b) Open a command prompt (windows button, type "cmd", enter).

5.c) Type "mklink /j "directory where your stuff originally was" "directory you just moved your stuff into"".

If you did it right, the original directory will be recreated as a symbolic link (there will be a shortcut arrow on the folder icon). That means everything you moved is actually on the HDD, but the OS will treat exactly as it if was on the SSD.

More on mklink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

Hope it helps.

While i was tying and stuff Murissokah ninja'd me  . So this post only has the option for a software to help you with the linking

If you want to NOT have to reinstall stuff,

I recommend you try to move programs to the hard drive then use Junction/Symbolic Links(MKlink command in the command prompt.) so that windows still sees them on the SSD when they are in fact on the hard drive.

You can do this real easy with a software called Junction Link Magic(and avoid the command prompt for this).

I would link to the main site, but it seems to be over its limit for the time
http://www.freewarefiles.com/downloads_counter.php?prog...

It is VERY important to take care when doing this as you should only move programs and not parts of windows.

You actually have to copy the folder to the hard drive then empty it on the SSD then create the junction.

I have never had issues with using the good old fashioned copy + paste option, but you may also wish to use robocopy(command Prompt based) to keep the file system permissions in tact as well.

An alternative to robocopy is a GUI for robocopy. it has NO status bar so you have to wait it out OR create a script and then run it. You have to use the /copyall check box on it as well

To be honest, as long as you are just moving programs, you should be able to do the old fashioned copy + paste option.

Just to make it clear, I have used Junction Link Magic with very good luck to "move" all kinds of things from drive to drive.

along those lines of windirstat to first find the culprits.

The 2 Windows things by "default" that could be eating up large portions of space.
Ensure you've taken the steps to tweak these.

1) pagefile.sys (pagefile) set to small constant value
2) hiberfil.sys (hibernate) powercfg /hibernate off
to ensure the file gets deleted.

I personally reduce the page file instead of fully removing it.

For hibernate file.

hit start and type cmd then hold control+shift+enter to run an administrative command prompt(maybe you don't need admin, i just always use it  )

type "powercfg -h off" without the "" and hit enter. That does eat space.

I've seen where your $TOPS file can get pretty big. Instructions on how to clear that out on your next reboot are at http://nerdsknowbest.blogspot.com/2013/01/phantom-space... along with how to modify your shadow copy limits.