I'm thinking about switching to Linux Mint because I'm really frustrated with Windows 11. However, I want to make sure that I keep all of my files, like games and documents. I've heard people suggest using an external drive, but that's not an option for me financially. I have a 2TB hard drive with about 800GB already used. What's the best way to go about this?
5 Answers
A lot of games nowadays back up your saves to the cloud, so you can usually just re-download them later. For your documents, they take up less space, so consider using a USB drive or a free cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox for those.
Using a 64GB USB stick is a budget-friendly way to back up your important files before making the switch. They’re pretty inexpensive, so it’s worth looking into!
You have a few options! Determine what types of files you need to keep—like PDF documents or game save files. If you have a couple of thumb drives, move your documents to those or use cloud storage. For game saves, this can work too, but just check if they'll transfer back to the Linux version of the games you’re playing. If you have another drive, you could back everything up there and install Linux onto the primary drive, that way you keep your files safe during the transition. If you have a hard drive dock, that’s a nice way to utilize another hard drive as an external backup.
You can definitely do that, but be careful with the way you manage the partitions. As for the installation, issues typically impact just the partition you're working on, but it’s always good to have a backup just in case!
You could try repartitioning your hard drive to create a separate ext4 partition for Linux. Just keep in mind that resizing partitions can sometimes be tricky, especially if you're not experienced. A safer move is to try running Linux from a live USB first to see if you like it! If you really want both systems, you might need another drive eventually, but be super cautious when making partitions since mistakes can lead to data loss.
Check out some websites that compare disk prices. You can find affordable storage options there. If you decide to get an external drive, make sure to pick up a casing that’s cheap—USB 3.1 is ideal for speed but not critical for storage. Also, USB sticks are super cheap nowadays; you can grab a 64GB one for around five bucks!
If I create a partition for Linux and later want to move files from Windows to Linux, can I just transfer everything over after the install and delete the Windows partition? What happens if something goes wrong during installation—will it affect my whole hard drive or just that partition?