![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Symbolic links for the win
Mar. 6th, 2019 06:42 pmI've known about symbolic links for a very long time. Mid 80s?
But windows didn't support them. But I recently found out that Win 7 and later *do* support them. Which solved a major disk space problem.
What is a symbolic link you ask?
It's a way to have the same file or directory appear at more than one place on the drive, but only have *one* copy of the actual contents.
You can do it in a command prompt window if you open it as an administrator. That's a pain.
But there's also a util you can install that adds it to the file manager menu. There's also a way to install it in Win XP.
I used it for a couple of things. One was to duplicate a directory tree so I could have it where it was copied from another drive, and also have it in a place that made more sense.
I did this with a "join" which meant it's the same directory/folder "tree". That means if i add/delete or change a file in *either* location it applies to both.
The real life saver was on one of the NAS drives. Since Fay hadn't been coming over to watch TV with me, that meant that I'd had to keep track of what she had and hadn't seen seperately from what I'd seen.
I had run out of space on the drive because of having the two sets of files. Using symbolic links for *files* meant I could have the files in one place and put "hardlinks" in the directory of stuff she hadn't seen yet.
Not only did this save space by not having the dta stored twice, but when you do links at the file level you can delete or rename a file in one location and not change the file in another location.
Took a while to do it, but I freed up around 100 gig. Which gives me breathing room until I can finish saving up for a new drive.
I still have to go thru and do this for the folders of music files for various devices. Ditto for ebook files for my kindle and the like.
But windows didn't support them. But I recently found out that Win 7 and later *do* support them. Which solved a major disk space problem.
What is a symbolic link you ask?
It's a way to have the same file or directory appear at more than one place on the drive, but only have *one* copy of the actual contents.
You can do it in a command prompt window if you open it as an administrator. That's a pain.
But there's also a util you can install that adds it to the file manager menu. There's also a way to install it in Win XP.
I used it for a couple of things. One was to duplicate a directory tree so I could have it where it was copied from another drive, and also have it in a place that made more sense.
I did this with a "join" which meant it's the same directory/folder "tree". That means if i add/delete or change a file in *either* location it applies to both.
The real life saver was on one of the NAS drives. Since Fay hadn't been coming over to watch TV with me, that meant that I'd had to keep track of what she had and hadn't seen seperately from what I'd seen.
I had run out of space on the drive because of having the two sets of files. Using symbolic links for *files* meant I could have the files in one place and put "hardlinks" in the directory of stuff she hadn't seen yet.
Not only did this save space by not having the dta stored twice, but when you do links at the file level you can delete or rename a file in one location and not change the file in another location.
Took a while to do it, but I freed up around 100 gig. Which gives me breathing room until I can finish saving up for a new drive.
I still have to go thru and do this for the folders of music files for various devices. Ditto for ebook files for my kindle and the like.
