Minimum free space on hard drive?

[atikovi]

I have a 500GB SSD and 26.1GB free of 489GB. Can I take that 26.1GB down to zero without any issues or should I start deleting stuff now?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have a 500GB SSD and 26.1GB free of 489GB. Can I take that 26.1GB down to zero without any issues or should I start deleting stuff now?

You need to start deleting stuff now. You should have 20-25% free space on an SSD to avoid problems such as write amplification, that will more quickly use up the write life of the SSD, and slowing of the SSD.

 

[atikovi]

It's a Crucial SSD less than a year old with a 3 year warranty. Aren't the newer drives immune to this problem? It won't make it to 3 years like this? Would it be better to swap in a 1TB drive? I don't recall seeing this issue mentioned when I first decided to go to SSD. Everybody said how great, fast, reliable they are. If you can only use 400GB of a 500GB drive, they probably should not advertise it as a 500GB drive, or at least make it with 600GB.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
As stated ssd's need over provisioning which is as also stated 20-25% free space reserved for trim or until trim is done.

You should move all personal files music and videos/ movies/ games to a larger hdd just leave the os and programs on the main ssd.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It's a Crucial SSD less than a year old with a 3 year warranty. Aren't the newer drives immune to this problem? It won't make it to 3 years like this? Would it be better to swap in a 1TB drive? I don't recall seeing this issue mentioned when I first decided to go to SSD. Everybody said how great, fast, reliable they are. If you can only use 400GB of a 500GB drive, they probably should not advertise it as a 500GB drive, or at least make it with 600GB.

If you have files you do not need on that drive, it would make more sense to cull them out. If you need everything that's on the drive, then you could add a second 50oGB drive to your computer and move a few files over to it.

While SSDs serve the same purpose as HDDs, they are not the same beasts and have to be treated differently. One example is the amount of empty space needed and why. With HDDs, one needs 10-15% empty space to reduce fragmentation and allow defragmentation. SSDs are far more tolerant of fragmentation so that is less of an issue (frequent defragmentation will actually reduce SSD write life) but write amplification due to overcrowding does become an issue due to the need to move data around during garbage collection (see here for a better explanation).

As far as the size rating of an SSD goes, that's just the way the industry standard goes. Your SSD has already had its size reduced by an extra 12GB by overprovisioning (from 512GB to 500GB). Both HDDs and SSDs format to a size smaller that the advertised amount due to differences in the way drive capacity is measured. I don't like it either but, at least, the drive industry is consistent about it. Both HDDs and SSDs need free space to operate properly and at their best; SSDs just happen to need a bit more of that extra room. It's something you will just have to accept.

I never said your drive wouldn't last through the warranty period. It probably will last well past the warranty period before you run out of write capacity unless you really abuse it (such as daily defragging; in normal use, an SSD should need to be defragged no more than once every 2-3 years). Keep in mind, though, write life is not the only determining factor in how long an SSD will last. For example, the controller or one of the NAND or other chips may fail prematurely. Stuff happens.

Still, if you want your SSD to have a reasonable chance of lasting a long time and not becoming sluggish, you need to double the amount of free space you have right now.

 

[WinDozeUser]

Looks to me that all suggestion are about right from my understanding. I rarely buy an SSD larger than 500GB and prefer to use 250GB SSD's as adding the OS and Software I do not go over 75GB. If you use Pagefile.sys is is recommended to be placed on a separate HDD. If you use Hibernation it is recommended that you don't. These two items alone can require Lots of space and add greatly to the write/rewrite life (shortens it).

 

[atikovi]

Can I delete any of these?

Folder-- size-- last accessed
Windows.old 18.7GB 1/15/2014
Windows.old.001 8.0GB 1/16/2014
Info 3.9GB 1/16/2014
bhdata 7.5GB 6/24/2014

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yep
Windows.old Folder - Delete - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[Ranger4]

Looks to me that all suggestion are about right from my understanding. I rarely buy an SSD larger than 500GB and prefer to use 250GB SSD's as adding the OS and Software I do not go over 75GB. If you use Pagefile.sys is is recommended to be placed on a separate HDD. If you use Hibernation it is recommended that you don't. These two items alone can require Lots of space and add greatly to the write/rewrite life (shortens it).

For best & fastest operation the page file should be on your Windows 7 SSD. I have my page file on the SSD & have done so for 4 years, with no problems. I don't use hibernation, if I am not going to need the computer for long periods I turn it off.

There has been a lot of talk about what is best for SSDs, but generally if you do what suits you to get the best results for your needs, the SSD will last for at least as long as an HDD.

 

[atikovi]

I deleted a bunch of folders so now there is 46.7GB free of 489GB.

 

[LMiller7]

For best & fastest operation the page file should be on your Windows 7 SSD.

YES

The performance characteristics of an SSD are an almost perfect match for the typical usage patterns of the pagefile. On the other hand, the characteristics of a conventional drive could hardly be more wrong. Pagefile usage typically consists of small reads scattered over the pagefile and mixed with reads from other files. On a conventional drive that means a lot of head seeks. Conventional drives have good transfer rate (but not as good as an SSD) but that matters little because far more time is taken reaching the data than reading it. Since SSDs have no moving parts seek time is almost zero and these problems do not happen. There are few files that benefit more from an SSD than the pagefile.

Certainly, SSDs do have limited writes. But in modern drives that number is so high that it is difficult to reach under real world conditions. SSDs can be killed with excessive writes but you really have to work at it. Having the pagefile on an SSD isn't going to do it. Typically an SSD dies from other causes long before writes become a factor. Or more likely the drive is replaced because it is just too small.

The only legitimate reason to put the pagefile on a conventional drive is as a temporary measure to conserve space on the SSD.

 

[RolandJS]

You are also continuing the routine of making full images of your OS and Data partitions onto external media?

 

[WinDozeUser]

YES

The performance characteristics of an SSD are an almost perfect match for the typical usage patterns of the pagefile. On the other hand, the characteristics of a conventional drive could hardly be more wrong. Pagefile usage typically consists of small reads scattered over the pagefile and mixed with reads from other files. On a conventional drive that means a lot of head seeks. Conventional drives have good transfer rate (but not as good as an SSD) but that matters little because far more time is taken reaching the data than reading it. Since SSDs have no moving parts seek time is almost zero and these problems do not happen. There are few files that benefit more from an SSD than the pagefile.

Certainly, SSDs do have limited writes. But in modern drives that number is so high that it is difficult to reach under real world conditions. SSDs can be killed with excessive writes but you really have to work at it. Having the pagefile on an SSD isn't going to do it. Typically an SSD dies from other causes long before writes become a factor. Or more likely the drive is replaced because it is just too small.

The only legitimate reason to put the pagefile on a conventional drive is as a temporary measure to conserve space on the SSD.

You are both right. My practices are somewhat out-of-context as I usually do not even need a pagefile. And by far the fastest memory to use is your RAM. I generally load up RAM and rarely use any pagefile at all, some systems, none. But these are specific scenarios and this kinda breaks from atikovi's topic a bit.

What constitutes a "modern" SSD is a question I have not heard an answer from though?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I deleted a bunch of folders so now there is 46.7GB free of 489GB.

That is a good beginning but it's only a bit less than 10%. You really need maintain at least 98-123GB free space.

 

[RolandJS]

The hard-drive and Windows act like a house, even though external square footage may quite large, the inside, livable, square footage is going to be somewhat less. Infrastucture.

 

[poolmon]

Here is how I recovered over 100g of my 250g SSD space using the WIN 7's built in utilities:

SYSTEM RESTORE
Do you have System Restore (SR) enabled on this SSD drive? If so you may have an unnecessarily large amount of the drive allocated to SR files. This can be checked at: Control Panel>System>System Protection. If your C drive shows its "On", highlight it and click "Configure". A window will open to show both your Current Usage and Max Usage. You can reduce Max Usage with the slider to a smaller amount (maybe 10%) to eliminate older SR files. This can salvage a ton of space (depending on your current setting perhaps in excess of 100 gig).

WINDOWS UPDATES
You can also regain up to 8 gig of space by letting Windows delete redundant WIN Update files that it stores even after they have already been installed. In My Computer right click on your C drive and select Properties. Click on Disk Clean Up. In window that opens click "Clean up system Files". This will prompt you through cleaning up the redundant WIN Update files. While there you can also choose to delete other files like Temp files, but they are miniscule in relation to the System Files which requires you click that separate button to delete.

Edit: If you do clean up your WIN Update files, when you reboot it will give you a message to not turn off your computer because WIN is "Reconfiguring Updates." There is a progress bar that will pretty quickly show 100% complete but it will still be running. Let it complete the reboot by itself (don't rely on the 100%) It may take longer (mine took quit awhile . . . maybe nearly 1 hour) to complete. It completed and I've got my space back.

 

[Melchior]

Hi,
You should move all personal files music and videos/ movies/ games to a larger hdd just leave the os and programs on the main ssd.

I do the same, except for my Music (Foobar2000)(5GB), compiler (MinGW), OS, general program installs...

I have 3 1TB HDDs on my Main PC
- OS, Music files(only 5GB so..), programs, etc
- All Games (RTS, MMOs, RPGs, etc)(Steam, Battle.net, etc)
- Server HDD where I store all my files

and an 250GB SSD on my Laptop...

 

[atikovi]

My 46GB of free space has slowly dropped down to 21GB over the last few months. Someone suggested CC Cleaner and I just tried it. Now it's back up to 186GB! What was all the stuff that it deleted that I assume isn't needed? And it wasn't in the Recycle bin.

 

[poolmon]

The only group of files I know that can account for that large a space are System Restore files which can easily exceed 100GB. This is the easiest way to regain space.

 

[atikovi]

I also noticed some 2-3GB log files from a year or two ago before using CC.