Tip: If you don't have enough space for the blockchain in your SSD and keep it in HDD, you can still speed up Bitcoin Core a lot

Not sure if this is well known or relevant, but thought I'd leave a tip for newbie Bitcoin Core users.

I had the chain in a slow hard drive because I didn't have space in my fast ones (nvme and SSD) but then figured out that you can move just the Chainstate folder to the fast drive (it's about 7gb or so instead of 200+) and leave the blocks in the HD.

In my case I moved it to a very fast nvme and left the rest in a super slow external HD and now Core starts/indexes and shuts down A LOT faster (I sometimes have that machine off for a day or so and needs resynch 24h+ on startup).

There's no option for separate folders in the UI tho (?), so you need to move the folder manually and then create symbolic links. Doesn't take much work and totally worth it.

How-to:

1. With Core closed, move the Chainstate folder from the slow drive to the fast drive (leave the Blocks folder in the original spot)
2. In Windows, open a Command Prompt (as administrator) and then use the command "mklink /j" (command to create a hard link pointing to a directory) - Core will look for the Chainstate folder in the usual place, but it will actually be reading from the destination where you moved it.

Command syntax is as follows: mklink /J "C:\Link To Folder" "C:\Users\Name\Original Folder"

When you open Core again, it will index from the new fast location, but still read the blocks from the HD. That link will persist, so if you reboot it will still work that way.

This page explains it better. Don't recall the Linux command at the moment but will update the post if someone mentions it.