SymMover

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on April 27, 2012

SSDs, or solid-state drives, are much faster than the fastest disk drive, but their price-to-capacity ratio means that most users who boot their systems from an SSD don't have much extra room for programs and data, especially big stuff like video and games. The usual solution is to park data and even Temp folders on a conventional HDD, but that can compromise the performance that you paid for when you bought an SSD, and some programs and games might not even run. Moba's SymMover offers an interesting alternative. This simple freeware moves data to another disk and creates a "junction" linking the old destination and the new one. Your software and games will still run normally from the new destination. But you can also use SymMover to quickly shuttle your data back and forth between disks, letting you keep the games and software you use most on your SSD or other main drive and store your other data on a slower high-capacity disk.

SymMover's interface is simple, with identical views for selecting Folders in Source and Folders in Destination, either individually or via Select All and Select None options. Down the middle runs a toolbar for adding and removing programs and files, changing the destination folder, and moving items from the Source side to Destination and back. The Web-based Help file offers good explanations, including troubleshooting.

SymMover is very easy to use. The interface shows installed programs on one tab and a tree view on the other; we simply selected those we wanted to move, and the tool did the rest. SymMover doesn't work with every kind of file and program; for instance, it only works with NTFS file systems and wouldn't work with a FAT-formatted USB drive. It won't move open or running programs, and it requires Administrator privileges for some actions. Some things won't move, such as the My Pictures folder, but it would move subfolders containing images. Log files explained failed moves. SymMover offers an ingenious and easy solution to moving big chunks of data between your hard drives, whether they're SSDs or not.

Publisher's Description

From Moba Software:

SymMover helps you move a folder from one disk to another, and keep its "location" in Windows Explorer. Windows still "thinks" the folder is located in the same place as before, even though it's not. SymMover achieves this by first moving the folder to its destination, and then creating a symbolic link between the source and destination. This means that software and games will still work after you move them to another disk. SymMover is designed for moving software and games. You can easily add installed software and games to SymMover's main window, and move them back and forth between disks. Do you have a fast SSD, that can't hold all your software and games at the same time? SymMover makes it easy to shuffle your software back and forth between the SSD and other disks. This means that you can benefit from the speed of the SSD, by moving the software you use the most to the SSD. Any disk can run out of space, and SymMover saves you from the hassle of uninstalling your software, and reinstalling it on another disk.

What's new in this version: Version 1.5.1510: ability to sort and change the folder view. New type of move and cleanup function.