Appear to have lost 20GB

MonsterMoshi · 1 Mar 2013 at 20:07

Hi,
I'm trying to free some space on my main boot drive (OCZ Vertex 4 256GB) and have found that somewhere there is over 20GB of space unaccounted for. Any ideas what this could be?
The picture to the left shows the summary of the root of C:/ drive including hidden folders.

wazza300 · 1 Mar 2013 at 20:10

pagefile? 16gb of ram = 16gb of pagefile,reduce it to 2.5gb if i were you

disabling sleep will save you some more

MonsterMoshi · 1 Mar 2013 at 20:26

Thanks for the suggestions

Just looked at pagefile which says it is currently allocated 2304MB?
Sleep has always been disabled

Any other ideas?

EDIT: I am running Windows 8 by the way

Duke · 1 Mar 2013 at 20:44

Use spacesniffer - its great for showing what is being used up.

http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/

bledd · 2 Mar 2013 at 08:45

System restore files

mranderson · 2 Mar 2013 at 08:49

Show hidden files/system files and check what are the sizes of the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys

DampDog · 2 Mar 2013 at 09:10

Hmm... That is odd.

Just out of interest I checked mine Samsung 250 (non-pro) and mine only shows 232Gig.

I have 23Gig allocated for over-provisioning so 209 for use. (win 7)

Sliver · 2 Mar 2013 at 09:28

Once a drive is formatted you lose some space. Maybe this is it ?

On Holiday · 2 Mar 2013 at 09:56

TreeSize, very useful!

kristmace · 2 Mar 2013 at 10:01

bledd. said:
System restore files

Most probably this. Amounts to around 10% which is default system restore size.

DoneADougalOnSofa · 2 Mar 2013 at 10:05

I'd say pagefile, and system restore files.
As you have 16GB ram, I'd turn the page file off completely, and set windows backup to only hold onto the last couple of restore points rather than all of them...

DampDog · 2 Mar 2013 at 10:07

kristmace said:
Most probably this. Amounts to around 10% which is default dystem restore size.

Sounds good to me. Can't say I'm concerned, simply had a look at my own system out of curiosity.

MartynB85 · 2 Mar 2013 at 13:15

Also there is a hidden file on the root of c that is used for hibernation.

MagicBoy · 2 Mar 2013 at 13:22

MartynB85 said:
Also there is a hidden file on the root of c that is used for hibernation.

hilerfil.sys

MonsterMoshi · 2 Mar 2013 at 13:38

Ok I have now accounted for the space using space sniffer as was suggested.
This showed two rather large files (hiberfil.sys & pagefil.sys) and various other smaller hidden files which don't show up in windows explorer.

I have turned off hibernate to remove hiberfil.sys as it only saves around 5 seconds off boot time which has gained me 16GB
As for pagefile.sys i have turned it off as suggested and also set the space allowed for system restore(or system protection as in windows 8) to a minimum.

Thanks for all the suggestion! Plenty of space to install Crysis 3 now when my gfx card returns from RMA!

mranderson · 2 Mar 2013 at 13:49

mranderson said:
Show hidden files/system files and check what are the sizes of the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys

bledd · 4 Mar 2013 at 01:11

Turn your pagefile back on

MagicBoy · 4 Mar 2013 at 01:12

bledd. said:
Turn your pagefile back on

+1

Or move it to another drive.

BrianB · 4 Mar 2013 at 08:00

768mb pagefile on RAMDISK here.

MonsterMoshi · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:59

What are the benefits of using pagefile?
I just thought it was for if you were running low on RAM?