Confused as to why my SSD is so full?

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SkruDe

SkruDe

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Hello,

When I built my new rig I put together a 4 Hard Drive system. I have a 120GB SSD for Windows and small Misc stuff relating to windows and monitoring. I have a 180GB SSD for Programs and Games. I have a 1TB Hard Drive for Bulk Storage and lastly a 1 TB Hard Drive for Back-Ups.

I am very careful to make sure I install everything to the appropriate hard drive to keep everything away from the windows boot SSD. Yet somehow I'm sitting at only 13GB of free space on that hard drive, which I don't understand at all.

I opened that Hard Drive in Windows Explorer and I have 8 folders:
1.) AMD - 500MB
2.) Intel - 1MB
3.) Perf Logs - 0MB
4.) Program Files - 2500MB
5.) Program Files (x86) - 3500MB
6.) Program Data - 6000MB
7.) Users - 8500MB
8.) Windows - 22500MB

For a grand total of 43 GB

Now I'm sure there is some behind the scenes stuff to run the OS as well. But should I really only have 13GB left on a 120GB Hard Drive?

Anyone have any idea what is going on here?? :(
 
Solution
MC_K7


In this case, you might be loosing 32GB for the hibernation files + another 32GB for the page file. It's like 64GB total (50%) of your SSD right there.

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casper1973

casper1973

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Try using WinDirStat - http://windirstat.info/

Great program for analysing disk usage.

Also remember your Pagefile size is roughly equal to how much RAM you have. So if you have 16GB RAM that's 16GB of storage reserved for the pagefile. If you have hibernation enabled that uses up another few GB.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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Could be:

1- Hibernation files (you can disable and delete them, there are many procedures on the web about how to do this just do a search)
2- Page files (For performance reasons, it would probably be better to move them to the secondary SSD than a HDD)
3- System restore (Maybe you can disable it or reduce the amount taken by the system)
4- Users files (I find less important to have those on a SSD, I usually move folders such as "Desktop", "My Documents", "My Pictures", etc... to a secondary HDD. Since these are system folders, it's better to right-click on the folder and go to Properties, then under the "Location" tab you simply change the path)
5- Could be hidden temporary folders, but there are more than one location for those, could be linked to other software you installed that are creating temporary files and not removing them, but this is harder to track down it depends on each software and where they store their files.

 
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SkruDe

SkruDe

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Interesting.... I have 32GB of RAM...... :O
Never knew about this. If that is the case, then yeah my mucho RAM reserves could be lending a hand to the issue.



Thanks for this post as well. Good info.
I have to learn more about these "Page Files".
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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In this case, you might be loosing 32GB for the hibernation files + another 32GB for the page file. It's like 64GB total (50%) of your SSD right there.

 
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Solution
casper1973

casper1973

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Simple video on changing page file size - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clbMLs9YFXY

I'd lower it to around 2-3GB.
Many people say turn it off completely but that isn't a good idea. No matter how much RAM you have, some programs require a Page File for optimal usage.

As for hibernation you can disable it with this command:
powercfg -h off

Must be an elevated command prompt (ie. Run as Administrator). This will also disable fast start-up in Windows 8 although with a SSD you barely need that. You can still use Sleep.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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For the page file I think it's better to let Windows manage it. Since he got a secondary SSD, I would simply change the path so that it resides on the other one and not taking any space on C:\.

And yes since this is a desktop, you can turn off hibernation completely. I even did it for my laptop which has a SSD too, SSD boot so fast that I don't need hibernation. I will simply put it to sleep or most of time I will turn it off completely and reboot it later (system takes only 10 seconds to boot anyways).

 
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SkruDe

SkruDe

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UPDATE:

Just wanted to give you guys an update. I did 2 things as suggested in this thread.

First, I disabled Hibernation mode through the CMD. This disabling brought my 120GB SSD from 13GB of free space all the way up to 38GB of free space.

Secondly, I relocated my page files from my 120GB SSD to my 1TB Bulk Storage Hard Drive. This further raised my 120GB SSD free space from 38GB up to 69.9GB.

So doing these two things freed up 57GB of space on my 120GB OS SSD.

Thanks again for all the help.

I NEVER use hibernation or sleep on my computer. It either stays on or turns off, so turning of Hibernation is no big deal. I don't quite understand the page file thing though, but I am assuming there will be no negative consequences anywhere from moving the page files to a HD instead of my OS's SSD. Really quick question, when I relocated the page files to my 1TB hard drive, I was given the option to customize a min and max size or choose a "Systems Managed size" which I guess just takes whatever it needs, right?? That okay to choose? It's on a 1TB HD with plenty of space.

Regardless, it makes me feel a lot better seeing my OS SSD less than half full now instead of nearly maxed out.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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They don't take that much space (each patch is often less than 5MB). The other problem is that if you remove them it will be impossible for you to revert back and uninstall the patch if it causes issues.

 
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