Move AC replays to a different drive or folder

[luchian]

Situation:
I have recently moved to win10, after more than 3 years on an untouched win7 install with 0 (zero) problems. The most stable windows installation I've ever experienced. Anyhooooo... I have an 128 Gb SSD for my OS install. Now, in our days, this is very little space..

One option,
would've been to move the \Users completely on another drive. But from previous experience, this will slow the system significantly after some time, loosing the main advantage of using an SSD in the first place. So started to 'cry around' for another solution. Which brings me to our subject..

Option number two,
is to create a directory junction for selected folders (which tend to get usually big) to another drive. Example, the replay and the screen folders from \Documents\Assetto Corsa. This works very similar to a normal shortcut, except that it tells the system (and any application, like AC) to 'use' the original path.

Here are the steps, in case you need to do something similar. I've tried this on win10 only, but probably works similarly on win7 and win8.

We will use a builtin tool, called mklink. Creates a symbolic link between the real location and the virtual one.

Here is the syntax:

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

/D Creates a directory symbolic link. Default. Very similar to creating a normal shortcut.
/H Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
/J Creates a Directory Junction.

Link Specifies the new symbolic link name.
Target Specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link refers to.​

In the above example:
1/ launch a Command Prompt, as administrator
2/ type:

mklink /J C:\ORIGINAL D:\WANNABE

where,
ORIGINAL, represents the name of the "virtual folder"; must NOT exist, will be created automatically.
WANNABE, represents the name of the "actual folder"; must BE created, manually.

Effect:
I can store anything I want in ORIGINAL, the system will see the files there but the actual space occupied on C: drive is 0, because the files are actually stored in WANNABE folder, on D: drive.

Final note:
Specifically for AC, you'd have something like:

mklink /J "C:\Users\Documents\Assetto Corsa\replay" D:\media_store\replay

Notice the " ", that's because the path includes a space

There you go, hope it will serve you as it did me

PS: to delete, just delete the link.

 

[Effedieffe]

I've tried to do it with normal link but Assetto Corsa does not consider it and it creates its own replay folder, your method works wonderfully and may also be useful on other occasions.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[Koleko]

Don´t work, when I write:

mklink /J "C:\Users\name\Documents\Assetto Corsa\replay" D:\media_store\replay

Says: "Can not create a file that already exists"

And if I write:

mklink /J "C:\Users\name\Documents\Assetto Corsa\replay" D:\Los Replays\replay

Says: "syntax wrong"

I tried with and without quotation marks and happens the same.


Using Windows 10.

My problem is not the space in the SSD, I'm just worried about the SSD durability. I don´t want it written all time when I am playing.

 

[luchian]

Same here.

First error seems to indicate there is already a folder with that name created. Delete it, and try again.

Second version, you have a space in the target path as well, so try quotes also.
e.g. mklink /J "C:\Users\name\Documents\Assetto Corsa\replay" "D:\Los Replays\replay"

..or just put some underscore
e.g. mklink /J "C:\Users\name\Documents\Assetto Corsa\replay" D:\Los_Replays\replay

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

 

[Koleko]

No matter what name I use, always says that the file already exists.
I tried at several partitions (D, E, F) but always says the same.

I think this is the typical Windows garbage that doesn't work for hardly anyone.

Thank you about phone, but I don´t speak english.

 

[Koleko]

Hei, I did a quick Google search for some similar program and I found FreeMove. Work great! It does the same that mklink.

It is very easy to use.

Now the original folder "replay" is only a shortcut, and all replays are in F:\repeticiones
I tested saving and watching and works.

Thank you for the post, because of this I found a solution.

 

[DrDoomsLab]

Hi there,

I found this useful a while back when my ssd got full. There is also a GUI version that is called Link Shell Extention.

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

 

[luchian]

Ah.. kids these days.. they want it all with a single click. Where's the love for old school cmd line ? (* hic.. I'm outta here.. hic..*)


*kiddin', thanks for sharing : )

 

[iixVorTeX]

So i did the first one /D and the last one /J wouldnt let me do the middle one /H its saying the new shortcut and the original file are the same size and the original size is the same size as the shortcut isnt the original not supposed to have a size now is this creating double the space on my pc??