Loading...
> >

C drive almost full and want to move content to external hard drive.

babybuick2691babybuick2691 Posts: 93
in New Users

Please forgive me in advance if I am asking a question already answered. I am very new to this and between purchases and creations my C drive 1TB  is filling fast. I have two 6TB external drives but not sure how to put content on external drives and still have be able to access it from C drive were DAZ is installed. Tried using Link Shell extension didn't work with my Windows 10. 

Please can someone provide a way to do this simple not very computer knowledgeable in this area and breaking down the process would help a lot.

Comments

  • BradCarstenBradCarsten Posts: 856
    edited March 2018

    just to clarify- do you want to move your library completely or keep what you have on c and add the rest to the external? 

    moving it is quite simple. 

    • Cut your existing content folder and paste it onto your external. The folder's usually called My Daz 3d Library. and is found somewhere in documents\daz 3d or there about.

    • Open DIM (the install manager)- go to the settings cog icon > installation. You will see a list of directories listed there. Add your new directory (eg D:daz/MyLibrary) under the one marked "default" 

    • Go into Daz studio. Click edit > preferences. 5th tab across you will see a tab labelled content. Inside that tab, click the content directory manager button. Select daz studio formats >  add the new directory (D:daz/MyLibrary). Right click and choose the option to move it to the top of the list 

    • Restart Daz Studio

    • Click the content library tab (where you normally choose your installed products) > click the options button (the icon is four horizontal line with an arrow) it's located above the tabs. Select content db maintenance > reimport metadata  

    • you're  done. 

    Post edited by BradCarsten on
  • babybuick2691babybuick2691 Posts: 93
    bradrg said:

    just to clarify- do you want to move your library completely or keep what you have on c and add the rest to the external? 

    moving it is quite simple. 

    • Create a new folder on your external and call it what ever you want- eg MyLibrary, and copy all your existing Daz files to it. 

    • Open DIM (the install manager)- go to the settings cog > installation > you will see a list of directories listed there. add your new directory under the "default one" (eg D:daz/MyLibrary)

    • Go into Daz studio > edit > preferences > 5th tab across is labelled content > Once inside click the content directory manager button > daz studio formats >  add the new directory (D:daz/MyLibrary) > right click and choose to move it to the top of the list 

    • Restart Daz Studio

    • Click the content library tab (where you normally choose your installed products) > click the options button (four horizontal line with an arrow) that's located above the tabs> select content db maintenance > reimport metadata  

    • you're  done. 

    Trying to move My Daz 3D Library to external drive and still be able to access my characters and scenes when I start Daz. Or to be able to add new content to external drive and still work.
  • BradCarstenBradCarsten Posts: 856
    edited March 2018

    Okay, cool. The steps above are what I used to move my entire library when my C Drive was full. I moved it, followed those steps and was back up and running in 5 minutes.  

    I've rewritten the steps to make them a little clearer. Shout if you have any questions. (I live in South Africa so you'll have to shout really loud)

    Post edited by BradCarsten on
  • brainmuffinbrainmuffin Posts: 1,205

    Best of luck. I've never been able to move content successfully.

  • votovoto Posts: 6

    You can use "hard links" ... by moving your content assest folder to a new location on a other hard drive.

    • move your content to the new location
    • open cmd (press windows key and type "cmd")
    • create a hard link with "mklink"

    Be sure that the original folder is deleted after you copied your files to the new location ... otherwise you can not create a hardlink if the original folder still exist.

    mklink /J "ORIGINAL PATH/FOLDER" "TARGET / YOUR NEW PATH"

    for example ...

    mklink /J "C:\Users\username\Documents\DAZ 3D" "D:\DAZ 3D"

    this will create a "hard link" from your new location to the old path without bean worry about any setup in DAZ3d.

     

  • babybuick2691babybuick2691 Posts: 93
    bradrg said:

    Okay, cool. The steps above are what I used to move my entire library when my C Drive was full. I moved it, followed those steps and was back up and running in 5 minutes.  

    I've rewritten the steps to make them a little clearer. Shout if you have any questions. (I live in South Africa so you'll have to shout really loud)

    Was able to copy all the My DAZ 3D folder contents except the data folder. Any Idea how to do that?

  • babybuick2691babybuick2691 Posts: 93
    bradrg said:

    Okay, cool. The steps above are what I used to move my entire library when my C Drive was full. I moved it, followed those steps and was back up and running in 5 minutes.  

    I've rewritten the steps to make them a little clearer. Shout if you have any questions. (I live in South Africa so you'll have to shout really loud)

    Was able to copy all the My DAZ 3D folder contents except the data folder. Any Idea how to do that?

    voto said:

    You can use "hard links" ... by moving your content assest folder to a new location on a other hard drive.

    • move your content to the new location
    • open cmd (press windows key and type "cmd")
    • create a hard link with "mklink"

    Be sure that the original folder is deleted after you copied your files to the new location ... otherwise you can not create a hardlink if the original folder still exist.

    mklink /J "ORIGINAL PATH/FOLDER" "TARGET / YOUR NEW PATH"

    for example ...

    mklink /J "C:\Users\username\Documents\DAZ 3D" "D:\DAZ 3D"

    this will create a "hard link" from your new location to the old path without bean worry about any setup in DAZ3d.

     

    Not sure what is hard link can you explain please.

  • kirwin66kirwin66 Posts: 5

    I just gave this a go, and it seems to work just fine - and boy, did it free up space on my computer!

  • texmcc87texmcc87 Posts: 0

    I know this an old post but I just wanted to thank all of you guys. This helped me bunches!

  • BSMVTEBSMVTE Posts: 10
    edited December 2020
    I know this is old thread. But having same issue. Less than 6gb left on my terabyte velociraptor main drive. If I move everything to another drive will all my old saved scene files have problems finding everything?
    Post edited by BSMVTE on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,842

    BSMVTE said:

    I know this is old thread. But having same issue. Less than 6gb left on my terabyte velociraptor main drive. If I move everything to another drive will all my old saved scene files have problems finding everything?

    Not as long as the new content directories are set up correctly (and the old ones were too) - DS scene and preset files use relative paths, they say where the referenced fiels are within the content directory but they don't care where the content directory is (that's why the scenes and presets in freebies and store products work).

  • arnonarnon Posts: 88
    edited January 2021

    edit: problem solved. Thanks for the "recipe". Original message:

    It worked so far, however now my new content is installed in

    Y:/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library/Applications/Data/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library 

    despite I set it to y:/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library and there's my old content as it should be, well, exactly it says C:/Daz 3D/Applications/Data/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library in DIM with relative paths following /runtime/textures/xxxx.

    So I think the Content Base Path in Basic Settings is wrong, but how to change it?

    edit: damn, always the same. Once I ask the question and prepare the pics... I give it another try and it works. But for the knowledge base in case others run into the same problem:

    In the Advanced tab I have to choose "Content Path Shortcuts" and set it to y:/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Librar, too.

    Post edited by arnon on
  • jbowlerjbowler Posts: 794

    babybuick2691 said:

    Okay, cool. The steps above are what I used to move my entire library when my C Drive was full. I moved it, followed those steps and was back up and running in 5 minutes.  

    I've rewritten the steps to make them a little clearer. Shout if you have any questions. (I live in South Africa so you'll have to shout really loud)

    Was able to copy all the My DAZ 3D folder contents except the data folder. Any Idea how to do that?

    You can use "hard links" ... by moving your content assest folder to a new location on a other hard drive.

    • move your content to the new location
    • open cmd (press windows key and type "cmd")
    • create a hard link with "mklink"

    Be sure that the original folder is deleted after you copied your files to the new location ... otherwise you can not create a hardlink if the original folder still exist.

    mklink /J "ORIGINAL PATH/FOLDER" "TARGET / YOUR NEW PATH"

    for example ...

    mklink /J "C:\Users\username\Documents\DAZ 3D" "D:\DAZ 3D"

    this will create a "hard link" from your new location to the old path without bean worry about any setup in DAZ3d.

     

    Not sure what is hard link can you explain please.

    It's a soft link, not a hard link.  In Windows terminology it is a "reparse point"; when the operating system gets to "C:\Users\username\Documents\DAZ 3D" above it encounters an object which tells it to go somewhere else, in this case "D:\DAZ 3D" and it continues trying to find the original object from there.  Suppose DAZStudio is looking for:

    C:\Users\username\Documents\DAZ 3D\Library\Runtime\file.duf

    When the operating system gets to the "DAZ 3D" object it finds it is a reparse point and not a directory.   It takes the destination (target) recording in the reparse point, appends the rest of the path and starts again from C:\Users\username\Documents\ with the new path.  In this case the path starts D:\DAZ 3D and so it ends up starting from scratch because it is looking for "D:\DAZ 3D\Library\Runtime\file.duf".

    DAZStudio doesn't know that any of this is happening, it just gets handed the actual file beneath D:\DAZ 3D.

    Reparse points are frequently called "symbolic links" in UNIX terminlogy.  The terms "soft link" and "hard link" are computer-nerd terms that describe how file deletion is controlled when the link is deleted.

    If you do create a system with reparse points then you need to be aware that things like backup programs and, sometimes, archival programs (things like pkzip) may or may not "follow" the reparse point.  In some cases a program that was written without regard to reparse points can end up creating a complete mess.  ntbackup used to output a mysterious scary message because it (correctly) did not follow through a reparse point.  You also do need to be using NTFS to create reparse points and reparse points are not the same as Windows "shortcuts".  It's simpler on UNIX because "symbolic links" have been around since Berkely created them in the BSD, they got back into AT&T UNIX with SVR4.  However UNIX symbolic links still require file system support.

    There are good reasons why you might want to use this technique in DAZStudio content directories and it should be pretty safe to do this at or above the top level; i.e where the first (link) argument to mklink is the name of a directory that exists in the DIM "Content path shortcuts" list and, therefore, in the DAZStudio CMS content directory settings.  However in that case you can also just alter the "shortcut" path in DIM and the corresponding path in the DAZStudio CMS and this might be more maintainable.

Sign In or Register to comment.