Tripecac
 but my system SSD is only 60 GB, and I've been struggling to keep 10% (6 GB) free over the years....

60GB?!  You are a man living on the edge!  
 
PM me.  I think I can help!

Yeah... I didn't realize we were talking about the program's guts. It does sound like an epicly bad idea when drives are so inexpensive these days. Make an image and toss it over to the new drive... then you can use the 60GB one for whatever... or just stick it in a closet as a back up you can pop in whenever you need.
 
I am not a tech though... but 60GB in this day and age is... not good. I've been pondering what to do with my 500GB C drive as it slowly gets more congested. But that's down to me being too preoccupied/lazy to clean it. lol

 
What's in your Native Instrument folders that's so big ?
 

Back when I built this PC (about 5 years ago), 60 GB was pretty good for a system drive.  I later bought a 120 GB SSD for my samples.  In addition to those drives, the PC has three 3TB SATA drives.  So, 5 drives total.
 
I'd love a larger SSD, but don't have much experience cloning system drives.  I use this PC for work as well, so it's critical that I don't put it at risk.
 
What software would you recommend for cloning one SSD to a larger SSD?  I think the SSD currently has 2 partitions: a 100 MB partition at the beginning (not readable by Windows) and the rest is my C drive.  I'd need both partitions cloned on a new SSD, but of course the C partition would be larger.  Is this an easy/low-risk thing to do?

Native Instruments - looks like there's lots of samples from Absynth, etc. in there.  All my Kontakt samples are on a different drive, but even those Absynth files add up!
 

I can't see any obvious reason why using junctions to move applications elsewhere after installation wouldn't work. I've done it with games that insist of installing in their own directory on the C drive rather than in the program files hierarchy. As far as Windows is concerned a junction point is the original location, in the same way a Unix hard symbolic link works.

The amount of space saved by moving the Sonar executables etc. isn't a great deal though. The Cakewalk Content folder can be shifted without problems (can't this be pointed elsewhere in prefences? Not at DAW and can't remember...).

The contents of the hidden Program Data folder can also get pretty big, as can the user temp directories. Clearing out temp files can free up a lot of space, as can using the Windows disk cleanup tool to remove accumulated Windows update downloads that Windows doesn't delete after installing the update.

Junction points are the best/easiest way to shift the Rapture, Session Drummer and Dim Pro samples which take up quite a lot of space.

My DAW's My Documents folder is junction-linked to another drive as is the downloads directory, works without issues. Just be sure to keep a record of what you've moved and where it "really" is and be careful to know exactly what you are looking at when deleting things.

Would you recommend junctions over symlinks?

Tripecac
Back when I built this PC (about 5 years ago), 60 GB was pretty good for a system drive.  I later bought a 120 GB SSD for my samples.  In addition to those drives, the PC has three 3TB SATA drives.  So, 5 drives total.
 
I'd love a larger SSD, but don't have much experience cloning system drives.  I use this PC for work as well, so it's critical that I don't put it at risk.
 
What software would you recommend for cloning one SSD to a larger SSD?  I think the SSD currently has 2 partitions: a 100 MB partition at the beginning (not readable by Windows) and the rest is my C drive.  I'd need both partitions cloned on a new SSD, but of course the C partition would be larger.  Is this an easy/low-risk thing to do?

There are much smarter folks than I who can help with that (check the Computers sub forum here to see if Mr. Roseberry is around).
 
However Acronis is one of the top drive imaging programs. Windows has the capability of creating images since Win7 though... I'm just not sure how well it works in comparison to something like Acronis.
 
If you have work stuff on the current C drive then my siggestion would be to create a dual boot system. Essentially you'd leave your current drive completely as is for work (and you could even delete all the Sonar gack on it) then have a larger cloned drive for your Sonar stuff. Then you just boot into whichever one you need.
 
The bonus is on the cloned drive you could leave your work stuff on it if you want so if you need to get some work done but don't want to boot into the other drive you can BUT you don't lose your current work setup. Since you have so many storage drives attached sharing files between the partiions shuld be easy peasy.
 
Yeah?
 
Anyway... this would require enough drive bays in the tower or yanking one of the storage drives out and tossing it into a cage or something like that but that would be something I'd personally consider as opposed to taking the risk of mucking around on a 60gb drive that's dangerously close to getting overloaded.
 
Again... I am not a tech so as I said maybe check out the Computers sub forum here or maybe some of the other dudes already in this thread can elaborate.
 
Perhaps this "linking" scheme would work BUT since it's Sonar AND audio stuff AND you have work stuff going on as well... I just wouldn't trust it if you can afford a new drive.
 
Good luck.

tlw
I can't see any obvious reason why using junctions to move applications elsewhere after installation wouldn't work. I've done it with games that insist of installing in their own directory on the C drive rather than in the program files hierarchy. As far as Windows is concerned a junction point is the original location, in the same way a Unix hard symbolic link works.

The amount of space saved by moving the Sonar executables etc. isn't a great deal though. The Cakewalk Content folder can be shifted without problems (can't this be pointed elsewhere in prefences? Not at DAW and can't remember...).

The contents of the hidden Program Data folder can also get pretty big, as can the user temp directories. Clearing out temp files can free up a lot of space, as can using the Windows disk cleanup tool to remove accumulated Windows update downloads that Windows doesn't delete after installing the update.

Junction points are the best/easiest way to shift the Rapture, Session Drummer and Dim Pro samples which take up quite a lot of space.

My DAW's My Documents folder is junction-linked to another drive as is the downloads directory, works without issues. Just be sure to keep a record of what you've moved and where it "really" is and be careful to know exactly what you are looking at when deleting things.

I really gotta wonder about the "streaming audio" aspect of it. It's a bugger at the best of times to avoid dropouts and glitches with DAWs (and Sonar in particular). A game may not be as susceptible to that kind of finicky crud.
 
But I do not know. Just something I'd be worried about.
 
I am however a scurrdykat
 

Tripecac
 
What software would you recommend for cloning one SSD to a larger SSD?  I think the SSD currently has 2 partitions: a 100 MB partition at the beginning (not readable by Windows) and the rest is my C drive.  I'd need both partitions cloned on a new SSD, but of course the C partition would be larger.  Is this an easy/low-risk thing to do?

Yes, quite simple to do, even with a free utility like Aomei Backupper.  (The hidden partition gets imaged and backed up as well).  Paragon, EaseUS and Acronis also offer commercial versions that can do this and more. 
 
I like to create a bootable disk (even the free utilities have this functionality).  Boot from that, run the backup/image process and point to another drive to be backed up to.  To restore, boot from same disk, choose restore option, pick the image you made earlier, point to the new destination and press Go!  That's it, simplified.