Free Space Question

[johnny_i]

Hi - I have a Samsung 830 128GB SSD installed as my C:\. It's formatted size is 119GB - I understand the difference between the stated 128GB and the formatted 119GB.

What's hanging me up is that with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and a couple of applications installed, it's stating that it's free space is only 33GB yet when I open Windows Explorer, open C:\, select all folders at the root level and select Properties, the combined Size of all folders on C:\ is only 27GB. Drive properties list 86GB used.

How am I using 86GB on this drive when there are only 27GB consumed by files and folders? Shouldn't my free space be closer to 92GB? The drive isn't partitioned sans the System Reserved 100MB.

Please forgive my ignorance here...

- Isaac

 

[cin19]

You need to tweak the SSD following the link http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

Like disable system restore, disable hibernation, disable prefetch and superfetch, etc.

* Also do you have the "windows.old" fold too? You can delete it if you have other OS in your SSD.

 

[wanderer11]

It really bugs me that people call it the formatted size. The difference is Windows is saying GB (1x10^9) when it means GiB (2^30).

 

[johnny_i]

You need to tweak the SSD following the link http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

Like disable system restore, disable hibernation, disable prefetch and superfetch, etc.

* Also do you have the "windows.old" fold too? You can delete it if you have other OS in your SSD.

Thanks for that link!! I don't have a windows.old as this was a fresh build with no migration - installed Windows fresh.

Step numbers from the link:
1) Didn't confirm, but I believe it's AHCI mode already
2) I verified that TRIM had already been enabled
3) I verified that system restore was already disabled
4) Did uncheck drive indexing to disable it
5) Disabled schedule defragmentation
6) Disabled PageFile (I have 32GB RAM so I should be ok without it)
7) Disabled disk hibernation
12) Switched to the high performance power management settings and set hard drive to never sleep

I can happily say that through steps 4 - 7 (&12) I have freed up an additional 23.2GB! That's a major gain that I wouldn't have expect to receive through those steps. It's now listed as using 62.5GB which is an improvement though still a ways away from the 27GB that the files and folders are taking up.

...but it's steps 8-11 from that link that I'm a little leary on proceeding with. For some reason the guide stops listing the benefits of these steps from this point-forward. For example, what are Prefetch and Superfetch? Would you happen to have any insight on these steps (8-11)?

Thanks again!!

 

[johnny_i]

Sorry - found a link elsewhere on TomsHardware that explained the Disable SuperFetch, Windows Search, ClearPageFileAtShutdown, and LargeSystemCache rationale (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911-6.html).

Still searching on PreFetch implications.

Any additional insight you can provide on the following would be greatly appreciated - thanks again!

It's now listed as using 62.5GB which is an improvement though still a ways away from the 27GB that the files and folders are taking up.

 

[cin19]

You need disable the prefetch at least because it writes files to the drive for cache frequently used applications and files to fast start. It can wear the SSD down over time.

more info check the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefetcher

Superfetch is same but it is for reading.

 

[johnny_i]

Best answer selected by johnny_i.