where has my disc space gone?

james cullen · 17 Feb 2011

Hello good people,

I have a question on space, space on my Operating system drive.

The drive is an ssd 120 gb, formatted it comes in at 111gb, I have fresh win 7 64 installed.

The Windows folder takes 16gb, my program folders take 5gb, the remaining folders on the os take 26gb. Total 47gb

I have no data apart from emails stored on the drive yet the drive properties show that I have 69gb used, so somewhere there is 22gb used I can't see.

Is it my Page file?

I have a dedicated drive that I have put a page file on as well as the os drive, this drive says there is 35gb used, I can't see where it is used and I'm thinking that that is the way with page files.

I have show hidden files enabled.

It's no huge deal but I'd like to know where the gb's are and if that amount can be shaved down so I can keep a good part of the drive free.

Cheers

James

Airbot · 17 Feb 2011

Hi.

Understand that what the drive is advertised as, there's always going to be slightly less in actual space. See this thread for an explanation -

HDD's - the Advertized size vs the Actual size.

Then you also have system restore taking up some space if you have it on.

System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage
System Protection Restore Points - Delete

This thread will give you some ideas as to why also. For instance if you never even used Hibernate or had a reason to, you could delete the file. When I did, it actually gave me 10GB back.

Hard Disk Space - Free Up and Recover

Be aware of the what those steps will do though, if you decide to implement any of them though.

james cullen · 17 Feb 2011

Airbot.

Thank you so much, that is a great list of threads you've given me and will take some time to go through it all.

I appreciate your time.

Cheers

James

james cullen · 17 Feb 2011

Thanks Airbot

I have recovered nearly 20gb, most of which came from disabling hibernation.

Thank you

James

Airbot · 17 Feb 2011

No problem.

ief1962 · 24 Feb 2011

I kept wondering why mine hd kept reducing space, excellent advice, who knew it would be that simple. Hats off to ya

sreedhav · 24 Feb 2011

Dear ief1962,
A small addition to what has been written in those excellent articles! Please download CCleaner (crap cleaner) from : piriform.com and use only the windows option! Do not bother about the registry there! Leave it ALONE! Kindly see the snaps as shown below to optimally use CCleaner IDEALLY EVERYDAY BEFORE SHUTTING DOWN THE LAPTOP FOR THE DAY!(Sorry for the bold type, it's purely for emphasis). CCleaner is a highly respected tool among all softwares to remove .temp files and i believe it is better done everyday!

Regards,
Sreedhav:)

DeaconFrost · 24 Feb 2011

sreedhav said:

Do not bother about the registry there! Leave it ALONE!

I'm hoping to not derail this thread, but it's been well documented that the registry cleaner is useful in some cases. I use it on every system of mine, and it has helped solve some quirky issues for me. I don't want to rehash all those again, so we don't take this off topic, but let's just leave it at the fact many people were able to post examples of how it was useful. CCleaner also provides several other functions, and is free, so it is definitely a trusted and recommended app. Just don't sell it short of what it can do.

sreedhav · 24 Feb 2011

Dear DeaconFrost,
Quote" Just don't sell it short of what it can do. "UNquote! I loved that sentence! Worth remembering and writing it down! I only thought that"discretion is the better part of valor"!

Regards,
Sreedhav.

PS: Borrowed knowledge tells me to inform the @posters that defragging is the worst thing you can do to a SSD! It is such a disservice,you are cutting down it's lifespan!