SSD Runs Out of Space as I Play Games

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Pclynn

Honorable
Feb 9, 2014
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Within the past week, I noticed that my SSD (that holds my OS) has been running out of space whenever I start up a game (this game is not on my SSD; it's on a separate hard drive). I only realized this when a message popped up saying I was out of space on my SSD. However, once I close the game the space returns, leaving me with anywhere between 3Gb to 8Gb of empty space. What would be the solution to stopping this?
 
Solution
Solandri

Get a bigger SSD, or move unnecessary stuff off the SSD.

SSDs cannot overwrite a 1 with a 0 or a 0 with a 1. They have to go through an intermediate erase step first. 0->erased->1, or 1->erased->0. The erased->x step is blazing fast. The x->erased step is really slow, sometimes slower than a HDD. So the SSD will erase deleted space in the background while it's idle, maximizing the amount of space that's ready to be written to at blazing speeds. That's why TRIM is so important - it's how the OS tells the SSD which...
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maxwellmelon

Splendid
Oct 2, 2013
2,511
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24,010
you need to change your swap file from your ssd to your regular drive.

don't know which os you have so cant give you exact details. but should be located in control panel find system property's, performance, virtual memory, disable automatic. set your main (ssd) to no page file and set your other hard drive to system managed size. reboot system and you should be good to go
 
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Solandri

Solandri

Illustrious
Jan 4, 2012
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Get a bigger SSD, or move unnecessary stuff off the SSD.

SSDs cannot overwrite a 1 with a 0 or a 0 with a 1. They have to go through an intermediate erase step first. 0->erased->1, or 1->erased->0. The erased->x step is blazing fast. The x->erased step is really slow, sometimes slower than a HDD. So the SSD will erase deleted space in the background while it's idle, maximizing the amount of space that's ready to be written to at blazing speeds. That's why TRIM is so important - it's how the OS tells the SSD which files have been deleted, so the flash memory is safe to erase.

So for a SSD to retain its high write speeds, it needs to have enough empty space for you to have a a good sized buffer pre-erased flash. Generally, this is around 15%-25% of the SSD's capacity. If your drive's free space drops below this amount, you're more likely to encounter slow writes (and reads if you force the SSD to read something while it's busy erasing).

Unless you have a 32 or 64 GB SSD, you are below the recommended amount of free space. Either move files off the SSD to clear up space (delete the hibernate file if you don't use it, reduce amount of space system restore is allowed to use, copy unused games, videos, photos, etc. to the HDD), or get a bigger SSD.

[

I'd be really careful doing this, especially on a gaming computer. I've found that some of the lag/freezes in games is caused by the inordinately high priority Windows gives pagefile read/writes. Put it on the slower HDD and you're going to get more of them.
 
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Solution
photonboy

photonboy

Titan
Jun 20, 2006
21,567
13
85,015
If you can't get a bigger SSD right now then learn how to clean it up a bit:

right-click C-drive in File Explorer->

"Disc Cleanup"->
"cleanup System Files"

Remove anything not necessary. May be a large file if you did a W10 massive update and/or upgrade from previous Windows.

Other:
1) Move files to another drive
2) Disable the Hibernation file
3) If you have STEAM games on this drive then move some to another drive:
a) Steam-> settings-> create another folder on a different drive (i.e. "E:\Steam2")
b) backup game file
c) delete game
d) RESTORE game but choose the new folder
e) DELETE the backup
 
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