SSD space is disappearing. Troublshooted almost everything already.

Ok I am officially stumped on this one, the only things I can think of is to make an image and transfer it to a HDD to see if the shrinkage continues, if it does you will know it is not the SSD and I personally do not believe it is. You could then factory reset the SSD and then try again with a new install.
I have toyed with the idea of doing a Repair Install as this appears to be a windows problem but if that does not work you are just wasting time I will leave that decision to you. added to this if the problem does turn out to be a virus you are just keeping it on the drive.

I haven't abandoned you by the way. I am watching. I thought pooch had it with trim/garbage collecting. I am stumped as well, it is completely odd to say the least. A Guy

A Guy, do you think it could help if he made an image of his drive with a program like Macrium, then mounted the backup image, he could go through it and see if he can find or change something that will solve the problem?

If he made an image, or even started to, and left the compression off, it should show him what the size of the backup will be. If it is the same as the used space he has. I'd say make an image, then restore it to the boot drive. That "should" leave him with all his free space back.

If however the imaging program tells him the size of backup will be everything but his current free space!!! I believe this is a good idea. He would need a 2nd hard drive to back up to, but by restoring that image to his SSD, it should then just be the correct used space. Then monitor to see if it starts growing again

A Guy

I'll leave that part up to you and Pooch. I was just thinking about the image. I;m almost convinced it is not a hardware problem. If it were, he should see the total size of the SSD shrink. That is not happening. I happen to have 2 of the same SSDs he has. And have seen no issues with mine. Some imaging programs or anti virus programs do things like build files in different locations. I had an issue once with Acronis that did some things simiar. Some AV programs do also. I am also not totally convinced that it is not a virus. You and Pooch know more about this stuff than me, but i have tried to go over all the things that can cause this. The SSD out of alignment would, trim not enabled would, A software program would, or a virus would. I have never seen Windows do anything similar to this. i have installed Windows 7 at least 100 times, and never seen this issue. But a hardware issue I do not believe would do this. The typical hardware issue on an SSD is you lose total size of the disk space, not free space. Something is taking over that disk. If you reinstall, I would recommend a secure erase and a clean install. those are just my thoughts.

Here is a program you may find useful in our situation. WinDir Stat if you have not used it already.