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I have SSD (128GB) and HDD (1TB). Windows 10 (C:/) is installed on SSD. HDD has two partitions: 1. Win partition (D:/) ~900GB 2. Ubuntu 19.10 (root and home) ~100GB

My question is, if I can (and if it's good idea) create partition on SSD (~15GB) and moving Ubuntu there. And /home/ would remain on HDD.

I want to do this mainly because Ubuntu is little bit slow on HDD (I know, that's kind of unusual). The problem is that I don't have that much space left on SSD and if it's worth the effort. What are the steps involved in moving Ubuntu? Thanks in advance

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  • Also see this answer for why you may want to keep /home in the SSD along with the Ubuntu system partition /.
    – user68186
    Nov 4, 2019 at 23:16
  • @user68186 That's a wonderful idea, if they have room for it. However, the OP explicitly stated there's only 15GB free on the SSD now.
    – K7AAY
    Nov 4, 2019 at 23:43
  • @K7AAY One can move all the personal data folders under /home to the HDD and use sym links, as I explain in this answer
    – user68186
    Nov 4, 2019 at 23:48
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    @user68186 I hope the last graf of my answer does your concept justice.
    – K7AAY
    Nov 4, 2019 at 23:51

2 Answers 2

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Since you are low on available space, I would first clean out the bits of Windows which could move to D:

Put not only Users and their data (including My Pictures and My Music) on the second physical drive, but also other Windows files as well. The swap file and page file (C:\swapfile.sys and C:\pagefile.sys), %TEMP%, and %TMP%, all can live on the HDD, instead of the SSD.

However, if you use hibernation, don't try to move the hiberfil.sys out of %SYSTEMDRIVE% , i.e., C:.

When you have made space, then install 19.10 anew on the SSD, reboot into Ubuntu on the SSD, and set /home to where it is now on the HDD.

user68186 has wisely suggested moving /home files to the SSD then creating sym links to the folders with most data (Documents, Music, Pictures, videos etc.) in a "Storage" partition which is NTFS formatted, so both Ubuntu and Windows can read and write to it. That, however, was in the context of having 60 GB free. If you can't shuffle your files around to get to at least 30 GB free space, you may not be able to practically get /home onto your SSD; and please avoid putting /home directly into an NTFS partition.

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  1. Installing Linux & Windows may be possible, but having them on separate disks eliminates potential MBR or EFI boot issues.

  2. I tend to avoid having /home on a secondary drive because the /home directory can't then be shared between multiple OS's without running into Permissions Conflicts. Instead, I add shortcuts within the /home folders to the relevant folders on the data drive. ...this ensures that my files can be preserved across OS's without getting locked.

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  • do you then recommend making the HDD which has /home on it the Primary OS (i.e., boot) drive? Please clarify.
    – K7AAY
    Nov 4, 2019 at 23:02
  • Howdy K7AAY - your updated answer says exactly what I was getting at. Keep /HOME within the OS Partition - and make links to the data drive inside the home folders so the /HOME directory won't fill up the OS Partition. ...just remember to mount the data drive so that the links will function for background applications.
    – Pip
    Nov 5, 2019 at 2:31
  • yes, I do suggest keeping Windows & Linux on separate drives... So, I wouldn't bother moving Ubuntu to the SSD--unless you just want to experiment, and are confident that you will still be able to boot to Windows 10 when you are done.
    – Pip
    Nov 5, 2019 at 3:16

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