[Quiksmage]

Relocating thumbnails to another drive.

My C: Drive is a 50 GB partition on an SSD. and XBMC's thumbnails are eating up a ridiculous size 10 GB. This is not leftover files either. I have deleted the thumbnails and let them repopulate.

I have used advancedsettings.xml with the following lines, but it does not work for thumbnails. Sources works, addon settings works,keymaps works, playlists works, but thumbnails do not work.

Code:

<pathsubstitution>
  <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/Video/</from>
    <to>H:/Thumbnails/Video/</to>
  </substitute>
  <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/Music/</from>
    <to>H:/Thumbnails/Music/</to>
  </substitute>
     <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/sources.xml</from>
    <to>SMB://192.168.1.60/d/xbmc/userdata/sources.xml</to>
  </substitute>
  <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/mediasources.xml</from>
    <to>SMB://192.168.1.60/d/xbmc/userdata/mediasources.xml</to>
  </substitute>
  <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/keymaps/</from>
    <to>SMB://192.168.1.60/d/xbmc/userdata/keymaps/</to>
  </substitute>
  <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/addon_data/</from>
    <to>SMB://192.168.1.60/d/xbmc/userdata/addon_data/</to>
  </substitute>
  <substitute>
    <from>special://masterprofile/playlists/</from>
    <to>SMB://192.168.1.60/d/xbmc/userdata/playlists/</to>
  </substitute>
  </pathsubstitution>

I initially tried with putting it on my SMB share which didn't work, so I changed it to a local drive which also does not work.

Anyone have any ideas on how to move my thumbnails directory off my C: drive?

[thrak76]

Try a symbolic link.

You'd need to move the whole directory first including the root "thumbnails" folder, and then at the command line

mklink /j c:\users\"you"\appdata\roaming\xbmc\userdata\thumbnails newdrive:\thumbnails

Do a little research on sym links and make sure that's what you want to do. Basically Windows thinks the thumbnails directory is in the regular place, but all the files are actually kept elsewhere.

[Quiksmage]

Thanks that sounds great. Do sym links work with network drives or do I have to keep it local?

Also, it's not possible to sync thumbnails via these means correct? I think I recall reading that it would be bad to sync thumbnails.

Such as in my case it would be

mklink /j c:\users\Danny\appdata\roaming\xbmc\userdata\thumbnails \\192.168.1.60\g\xbmc\thumbnails

for the target location if this works do I use SMB:\\192.168.1.60 or \\192.168.1.60 I assume it's interchangeable, but thought I'd ask.

[thrak76]

Yeah, you can create symlinks across the network. You may have to use the Win32 path though, instead of the samba path.

I can't advise on syncing thumbnails... I'm not currently using more than one xbmc box right now.

[Quiksmage]

Thanks for the help!

[thrak76]

Such as in my case it would be

mklink /j c:\users\Danny\appdata\roaming\xbmc\userdata\thumbnails \\192.168.1.60\g\xbmc\thumbnails

This looks good, but you might have to use the computer name instead of the IP address - though I've never tried it with the ip address. It might work. Just remember that you have to move the directory first, before you're able to create the link, otherwise it will throw you an error when you enter the command - something like "directory already exists".

[Martijn]

IP address is faster because you don't have to do namelookup

[Quiksmage]

I'm a little unclear.

1.So, I have my thumbnails folder on my C:\ drive.

2.I then move the thumbnails folder over to the designated folder.

3.I create the link in the command prompt

This is the correct order, right?

Is it possible to do this with the entire appdata/roaming/xbmc directory if I wanted to let's say make my installation portable and then if I have to reformat, I just create the link again.

[thrak76]

Yes, that's the correct order.

It probably is possible to do that with the entire xbmc directory, but it may slow things down. It's worth a try though!

[Quiksmage]

Just wanted to say that it's working great when I keep my entire roaming/xbmc directory on my other SSD. Now I can preserve my Installation drive without having to give it a bigger partition and my xbmc settings are all portable and unlinked to my C: drive =D.

[thrak76]

That's good to hear! Glad everything worked out.