Directing the location of where ATI is installed?
I know this has been asked before, but... presently, we're not given the ability to specify where we want Acronis True Image installed on our systems. It always defaults to the C: drive. Are there plans to change this? I'm asking because in trying to limit the number of writes to the SSD drives on our systems, with ATI on the C: drive, and its propensity for writing scads of log files, it would be nice if we could direct the installer to a drive other than the SSD, if possible. Thanks!
Thanks Steve! Will do.
Tom, I understand this concern as I've had it myself. In some cases, I have created junctions to move something off the C: drive.
As an example, my Garmin has created a 26GB folder after various map updates. I set up a junction so that it looks like it is on the C: drive when in fact it's on D:. The Garmin app doesn't know the difference.
The command (for example) is:
mklink /J "C:\ProgramData\Garmin\CoreService" "D:\MyStuff\ProgramData\Garmin\CoreService"
When doing this, the target location must exist and the link location (on C: drive) must not exist.
I have not tried this with ATI and don't know if it would present any issues. If you were to try it (I don't plan to), you would need to be sure that all True Image services, etc. were completely shut down.
Much of ATI runs as Windows services and tasks running under system authority. This may imposed path restrictions that other products do not have. (That's just a guess.)
In rereading Tom's original question, he's thinking of the install location but his issue is logs. I was thinking about the data which is in C:\ProgramData\Acronis.
It may be worth determining which logs are of most concern. I think Windows is performing far more logging than ATI but if there is a specific ATI log that is of concern, it may be possible to just move (via junction) a subfolder.
I think ATI puts its logs, along with may other things, in %programdata%\Acronis\ by default. I haven't seen a way to override that ... but it may exist. If not, we are limited to %programdata%\Acronis\.
I think Windows allows us to put the ProgramData folder somewhere other than C:, and will set %programdata% accordingly.
So the suggestion here is to use symbolic links to hold the log files. This should work fine as long as the link is the proper type.
As Bruno writes it, what is being created is known as a Directory Junction. This method would work fine in relocating the log folders to a different Directory on another drive. The /J switch of mklink command is what is called a Hard link. The /H switch is also available for Hard link creation but is used at the file level.
Soft links can also be created but are not suitable for the purpose desired here as hard links make Windows tell applications that they are writing to exactly where they think they are instead of to an alternate location whereas a soft link does not.
See the link below for more:
Everything I've found so far strongly recommends against moving ProgramData.
Yeah, I would not move the ProgramData folder but the True Image log folders within the ProgramData folder should be fine to move.
Thanks for the symbolic link info Enchantec! Much appreciated!
Your welcome.
Just a late comment on this issue. If moving the location for the Acronis logs, then this needs to be for C:\ProgramData\Acronis\ as this is where most of the logs folders have their root, and there are lots of logs folders from this point onwards nested at different levels.
> I know this has been asked before, but... presently, we're not given the ability to specify where we want Acronis True Image installed on our systems. It always defaults to the C: drive. Are there plans to change this?
Hello Tom, currently it is not planned to change this requirement, but I have added this thread as a vote for the existing change request. Thank you!
Thank you Ekaterina!