SSD Taking up too much storage then it should?

[Guest]

Alright So i got a sparkling new Samsung 128gb SSD last week, And i know the SSD itself takes up 9GB of it, so i got 119GB Left, So After I Installed Windows and My programs, I highlight all of my C: Drive and it says that it is: 25GB (Including the OS). So I should have ~ 90-94GB Of Storage Left... Right? But When I check it shows that I Only have 80GB Left, Why is this? Also i used the Samsung SSD Program to tune and optimize it, also followed a few guides online and did the major things, but what i didn't do is update the firmware because it said It's not exactly "safe". Am I missing something here?

 

[Guest]

Btw: Before that i had an old windows install on it which I reinstalled and deleted the old windows, maybe thats why, but how do i delete it, I have certain ways for an HDD, but no idea for an SSD.

 

[Solandri]

Try rebooting. On SSDs, old data cannot be overwritten with new data like it can on HDDs. The memory first needs to be erased before it can take new data (think of it as an EEPROM). This is what TRIM is about (google it). I have an older SSD so I don't know how relevant it is to your case. But on mine, when I delete a file the space does not immediately become available. Sometimes it takes a few seconds, sometimes a few hours, sometimes it never seems to show up. But a reboot seems to force the space to be cleared.

Other places where disk space seems to invisibly disappear are:
- hibernation file (same size as your RAM)
- pagefile (defaults to same size as your RAM)
- system restore (defaults to a fixed % of your drive size)
- Windows Media Center cache (still haven't figured out how to manually clear it)

Google for a program called WinDirStat, which will give you a graphical representation of where all your disk space is going. You can also grab CCleaner to help you delete all sorts of temporary files which seem to be left behind by some programs. Be careful with it though as it can also erase all sorts of other useful things like cookies.

 

[Guest]

Best answer selected by Altay.

 

[Guest]

Wow Solandri! You were right, It was the Page filing, I turned it off, however some people say i should keep atleast 1GB of it. Thanks!

 

[skidawgz]

don't turn off your page filing, you will slow your system down. No point to buy a SSD to speed up your system just to have it slow down in other ways.

I was up to 20GB on a fresh install on my 60GB SSD. Also, test your SSD to make sure you are getting the proper speed. I think AHCI needs to be enabled when you install windows or you lose a lot of the SSDs speed. Installing overtop your old windows may not have been the right choice.

It is a gaming PC, so I knew i would never use certain windows features, so I turned off a lot of them. It shrunk that fresh windows install down to 13GB. I turned off hibernation option, and system restore, I remember cutting out about 7GB in data.
I have a second drive that I installed programs of lesser importance.

 

[Solandri]

Windows will constantly complain if you turn off the pagefile, so yeah don't disable it. Unlike a HDD though, there is no advantage in pre-allocating the pagefile. On a HDD, pre-allocating would store the pagefile sequentially on the HDD, making read/writes to it quicker. On a SSD it doesn't matter if it's sequential or scattered in little pieces. Read/write speeds will be the same either way.

So I set the default pagefile to be 256 MB, but allow it to grow to 4 GB if needed (I have 8GB of RAM and rarely use all 8).

 

[j2j663]

I agree not to turn off your pagefile. But there are 2 situations to consider:

1. If you are consistently using 100% of your ram, then you are also consistently using your pagefile so I would keep it on your SSD.

2. (More likely) If you rarely use 100% of your ram, then move your page file from your C: drive to your HDD. As long as you have some space allocated for a pagefile then windows will not complain. But if you rarely use it why not put it on the HDD which is there for exactly that reason, to hold things that just have to take up space.