Windows 7 uses alot of space on an SSD

[guessoso]

I just got a new PC that was custom built for me. No software other than windows 7 was installed

RAM: 16 gb
SSD 120 GB (boot drive)
1 TB RAID Mirror drives

I only have 71.5 gbs of space left on my SSD. What is taking up the space? I have not configured restore points? Is this swap space and space needed for hybernate? If so, how do reduce this? I will probably never use all of my 16 GB of RAM. I only got that much because it was $40 for 8 GBs. What else can I clean up?

How would I change the hybernate and swap space and what should I set it to? I am not sure I even need hybernate if it is going to use so much space.

Also, I have not set up the system restore points yet. Can I configure this to go to my 1 TB RAID array instead of the SSD?


Looks like windows 7 has soft links which they call junctions. Could I mvoe some of this stuff to my raided hard drive and use soft links? I have used soft links in unix many times before. I don't know if these are exactly the same thing. f there is a chance I will break something, its not the end of the world. i just got it so i could reinstall. but any pitfalls would be nice.

 

[Rockdpm]

should have gotten a bigger ssd if you wanted space. um get you friend to install a seperate drive (Storage drive). Or load all other crap on your 1TB raid. Your SSD should only be for stuff like games and benchmarks or whatever program you want to load fastest.

 

[moornix]

Since you have a lot of RAM, you'll have a lot of reserved space. hiberfil.sys takes up 75% of RAM size on disk drive and pagefile takes up 100% RAM size on the disk drive. If you don't ever use sleep, then you can "delete" the hiberfil.sys file and reduce pagefile to about 2 GB (or 16 MB if you want)

Read these:
Delete hiberfil.sys

Change size of pagefile

 

[mcnumpty23]

+1 to moornix

you can get about 30gb back

also deleting hyberfil.sys doesnt stop you using sleep--just hibernate

 

[guessoso]

1. what is all the space being used for?
how do i reduce the swap space? from what I googled since I have 16 gb of ram. windows will set up alot more swap space. I will almost never used this much. so what should I set it to?

2/. Also, this link suggests disabling hybernate to free up space .but its a command line thing. so wondering if there is danger to it. I don't need hybernate at all. boot up is really fast.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToFreeingUpDiskSpaceUnderWindows7.aspx

3. can i put windows restore points for the SSD on the raid device? If I can't do it natively, could I do this with a junction (soft link).

 

[djscribbles]

Check out this link for how to save all that space:
http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/#disqus_thread

You can also offload your Users, programData to your hdd with this method:
http://lifehacker.com/5467758/move-the-users-directory-in-windows-7
(Be aware if you mess that up you may have to reinstall windows). I really like doing this because it lets you use your computer like you would with an HDD.

(If you are a gamer)
You can use steamMover if you are a gamer and it will let you move games back and forth between your steam install and your SSD.
You can also use mklink to move your steamapps directory to your HDD, that way games default to your HDD, and you can move them to the SSD using steamMover.

 

[moornix]

1. what is all the space being used for?
how do i reduce the swap space? from what I googled since I have 16 gb of ram. windows will set up alot more swap space. I will almost never used this much. so what should I set it to?

2/. Also, this link suggests disabling hybernate to free up space .but its a command line thing. so wondering if there is danger to it. I don't need hybernate at all. boot up is really fast.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToFreeingUpDiskSpaceUnderWindows7.aspx

3. can i put windows restore points for the SSD on the raid device? If I can't do it natively, could I do this with a junction (soft link).

1. The space is reserved to store anything that was in RAM to the hard drive when you a) hibernate or b) need more RAM than available. You have 16 GB, you will probably never run out of RAM space (unless you somehow program an infinite loop or something).

2. The command line will be fine and will not affect other systems. If you feel uncomfortable, you can also do it manually in the link I gave.

3. I have no idea.

 

[DeadRam]

You don't need a swap file. My new PC has a 128GB SSD and only 8GB of memory and it works fine without a swap file. Also Windows stores WIndows update undo files in C:\Windows\Winsxs. If SP1 was installed separately these files can be removed by running a command. I know the Vista commands but not Windows 7. Sorry. Don't manually delete anything from this folder or Windows might not boot.

 

[mcnumpty23]

You don't need a swap file. My new PC has a 128GB SSD and only 8GB of memory and it works fine without a swap file. Also Windows stores WIndows update undo files in C:\Windows\Winsxs. If SP1 was installed separately these files can be removed by running a command. I know the Vista commands but not Windows 7. Sorry. Don't manually delete anything from this folder or Windows might not boot.

some software requires a page file--certain adobe software for example

i set mine down to 500mb just in case

service pack 1 files can be removed by opening a command prompt as administrator and entering


dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded /hidesp

this will gain up to 1.5gb

 

[djscribbles]

It's easy enough to just disable the pagefile from your SSD, and add it to your HDD as system managed.
There is no _need_ to disable the pagefile, but if you do it will force Windows to alocate everything in RAM instead of slow pagefile caching; but if you have programs that are incompatible with no-pagefile just enable it on your RAID setup to keep it from eating up SSD space.

Regarding moving restore points off disk, I believe restore points are too scattered to junction to the other drive, the SSD optimization guide gives the steps for disabling them. I personally never trust system restore, always prefer to reformat in the event of a virus or something.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Try going to no pagefile and re-enable it on the HDD if you run into an issue.

Boots are fast ,as is sleep, so no need for hibernate.

You can also run CCleaner and get rid of trash gunking up your drive.

 

[nhasian]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the system restore partition. check to see if your system has a system restore partition on the drive. if so you can safely back it to an external hard disk with Clonezilla and then delete it to free up room on your SSD. If there is a C:\i386 you can move that to an external hard disk as well.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

If you are going to use an SSD, you really need to educate yaself about windows. In addition of all of the above, default locations for the following are all on the boot drive:

E-mail profiles (mine's about 40 GB ..... location changed to HD of course as with those below)
User Files
Programs

Even if you move the install location to the HD, it still will install "common files" to the boot drive.

 

[foscooter]

Please read my thread here:

Tips for SSD Users

Pay close attention to the link on SSD Optimization, especially turning off System Restore, and deleteing it's points.

 

[djscribbles]

I hate to disagree Jack, but if the builder properly configures an SSD (as he said it was a custom built), you don't need all that much knowledge to use the SSD. (I've set one up for a friend who is completely hardware/os illiterate about 3mo ago, did a checkup this weekend and his PC is fine)

Once you move your users directory, the program data directory, disable hibernate/system-restore/etc following the SSD Optimization guides more reasonable steps, and (still assuming gamer) setup steam to default to HDD with symlinks, the thing is easy to use like any other pc.

The problem is the custom builder likely didn't bother with (or know) how to setup the SSD for being convenient to the end user.
Once you set one up nicely, the worst that can be done is accidentally installing big programs on the SSD (which most any user can uninstall and reinstall to resolve).

 

[lovescomputers]

I'm running a Vertex 3 60GB and have no space problems all my programs are on my WDC 500GB hard drive

 

[guessoso]

I don't have space problems. I have 70 gbs left. This is a new build. So I figure its better if I mess with stuff now instead of waiting. So basically if I screw up my windows 7 install and have to rebuild, its less work, since I don't have any software on it yet.

1. how much of a performance hit will my swap file have if I move it to the HDD?
2. If I leave my swap file on the SSD and shrink it to say 4 gb. Is that enough? Or 8 gb?

3. If I use junctions/soft links to point files to my RAID HDD and I add a windows 7 installation on my RAID HDD, is there any chance of a conflict? I am think I should make about 100 gb partition for my windows 7 install. I want windows 7 installed in 2 places, in case my SSD dies (i know its rare) or I have to restore/repair, etc.. I may not have time. I would boot off the hard drive to get work done.

4. Thanks for the service pack info. I don't know if that came with the CD. In the 2 days I have had the machine it has installed a whole host of windows updates.

The only way I can see using all this memory up, is when I am messing with minecraft. I want to see what happens when I allocate 12 gbs of space, jack up graphics. Use every damn mod i can find and jack up mo creatures as high as possible until it crashes to see what I can get. So basically, I'll be screwing around. I'll still leave 2 gb free.

 

[djscribbles]

1) Your probably never going to notice the difference between caching on your SSD vs not. There maybe a slight advantage to caching on a faster disk, but it will simply reduce the snag you see slightly when you have to load something cached (which is rare anyway, since large amounts of memory really reduce the need for the cache).

2)I personally just set the pagefile on my HDD to system managed, and turn it off on my SSD. You can turn it off pagefile entirely, I have done this in the past, and only ran into one or two games that had a problem with it (the games would alert me that my pagefile wasn't large enough to run the game, it wasn't a mystery crash).

3)You can junction things like your steam games, and regular old directories, but file permissions will likely prevent you from sharing a 'users' directory. If you move your data diretories off the SSD, you can always install Windows7 on another drive/partition in your raid, if your SSD ever crashes, you'd simply have to copy the Users folder data that belonged with your SSD-OS into your backup-OS users folder.

 

[guessoso]

forgot to ask this. where do I go to change my pagefile?

instead of turning off hybernate. can i reduce how much space i allocate for it? so it only saves up to that amount of space?

 

[djscribbles]

Check out this page:
http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/2/
It shows you how to get to the pagefile menu.

You may be able to link hiberfil.sys off to your HDD (never tried this, very possible it doesn't work), then you can keep hibernate (though it would be slower to recover than your normal boot time probably) in case you ever need it for preserving your session or whatever.

I'm not sure you can reduce the size, hibernate needs to make a copy of your RAM on the HDD, you have 16gigs of ram, so it's theoretically going to have to store all of that on the disk when you hibernate.