SSD HUGE Space Usage Discrepancy - Need Info!

[kennebunk larry]

Hello,

I am totally perplexed. I just built a new PC and I installed a Crucial M4 128 GB SSD. I only installed Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and a few programs. 'Properties' shows that the Windows directory takes 17 GB of space; the few programs I have thus far installed take up 4 GB; and the users folder takes just over 1 GB for a total of 36 GB but 'properties' shows that my C disk has 81 GB used! There's 45 GB unaccounted for!! I ran chkdsk on my SSD and it found no problems that I could see.

Any ideas on what my problem could be???

Thanks in advance,
Larry

 

[sminlal]

Look for the hidden "pagefile.sys" and "hiberfil.sys" in your root directory.

Also check for the amount of space used by restore points:

- click "Start", right-click "Computer" and select "Properties"
- click "System Protection"
- click the "System Protection" tab
- click the boot drive in the list of drives so that it's selected
- click the "Configure..." button

 

[kennebunk larry]

Hi,

That's amazing to me! hiberfil is showing 25 GB and pagefil is showing 33.5 GB. I didn't bother checking the restore points yet after seeing this. Can you explain what this result means?

Thanks so much,
Larry

 

[foscooter]

To receover space on an SSD, turn of hibernation and restore points. You can make the pagefile smaller, but I wouldn't get rid of it.

The are SSD Tweaks out there for such things. Let me find one...

Here's the one I used: The SSD Review

Here's OCZ guide (don't need an OCZ SSD): SSD Tips and Tweaks

These are getting kind of dated, and many features are not needed anymore, but no harm will come to those who follow directions.

 

[kennebunk larry]

Hi,

Your help is greatly appreciated! I will try your suggestions later this evening.

Thanks so much,
Larry

 

[photonboy]

How much RAM do you have?
If you have Hibernation enabled it reserves the same amount of space as your System RAM. The pagefile is even bigger.

Do you have 24GB of RAM?

If you do, then I agree with disabling the Hibernation file and reducing the Pagefile to 4GB.

Also, the SSD usable space for a 128GB drive is probably about 118GB.

 

[kennebunk larry]

Hi photonboy,

You are right on! I actually have 32 gb of RAM. I will fix this tomorrow.

Thanks very much,
Larry

 

[photonboy]

RAM USAGE:
Just FYI, but more than 8GB of RAM provides no benefit unless you do video editing (not just converting or shrinking video as that's processor limited).

To be clear:
2GB - Windows 7 works well with only 2GB but it won't be quite as fast as 4GB and opening or closing games can be slow because Windows needs to swap to the hard drive to make space in RAM.

4GB - Multi-tasking is much faster.

8GB - Multi-tasking CAN be a little faster but in reality with an SSD 8GB vs 4GB would provide very little benefit.

32GB - adds a LOT more heat and can ONLY be utilized in certain video editing scenarios.

*So if you do NOT do video editing then my advice is use 8GB of RAM (2x4GB), keep your Hibernation file and leave the Pagefile as System Managed.

 

[sminlal]

Just FYI, but more than 8GB of RAM provides no benefit unless you do video editing (not just converting or shrinking video as that's processor limited).

There are other RAM-intensive workloads as well, such as batch processing of files using Photoshop, especially if it involves RAW files. Stitching multiple shots together can also be very RAM-intensive. Databases can also get a huge benefit from abundant RAM, depending on how much data they hold and how they're indexed.

Also, Windows uses free RAM for file caching, so if you're doing a lot of file accesses the unused RAM can eliminate the need to re-read file system metadata and the files themselves. Whether that's a benefit or not depends very much how your workload accesses files.

 

[photonboy]

There are other RAM-intensive workloads as well, such as batch processing of files using Photoshop, especially if it involves RAW files. Stitching multiple shots together can also be very RAM-intensive. Databases can also get a huge benefit from abundant RAM, depending on how much data they hold and how they're indexed.

Also, Windows uses free RAM for file caching, so if you're doing a lot of file accesses the unused RAM can eliminate the need to re-read file system metadata and the files themselves. Whether that's a benefit or not depends very much how your workload accesses files.

The above issues have been tested by themselves and in various multi-tasking scenarios and it's very rare to find a scenario benefitting from more than 8GB of RAM. I no longer have the link but experts could not find any scenarios aside from:
1) Video Editing (even then only certain scenarios)
2) Virtual OS's sharing the RAM
3) massive RAW picture files of 100MB+ with many layers

Unless these types of scenarios exist, then the RAM is simply adding heat and thus noise to the computer.