Does a clean install of Windows save much space on ssd

mdaw · 28 Jul 2018 at 15:34

Hi all,

I have a 120gb samsung 840 evo with my OS installed on it. I have moved lots of stuff to another ssd for games etc but over time this drive seems to keep filling up despite deleting previous versions of windows when it appears. Having looked through what is on the drive i cannot workout how over 100gb is being used unless it windows?

bremen1874 · 28 Jul 2018 at 15:45

Install WinDirStat. It'll show you where the disk space is being used.

HoneyBadger · 28 Jul 2018 at 18:31

Also click start, run and type in cleanmgr and click ok. (Or run ccleaner)

DarrenM343 · 28 Jul 2018 at 18:38

Really not worth it these days.
I remember trying this some years ago, out of interest really, and by the time I had everything installed again the drive usage was the same as before.
CCCleaner and the drive cleanup utililty built into windows is pretty good - it'll do a deep check to check for system files that can be cleaned up too.I've just run this now and found 9.2GB of Windows update files that it'll delete.
Most of the time uninstalling apps is enough with occasional use of the two utils above.

DJ85 · 28 Jul 2018 at 18:43

Not to much but sometimes worth the if your system is slowing down. I noticed a lot of small programs install straight to the windows install disk, some you can browse and change and stuff like photoshop you get no choice with the creative centre.
I did it not long ago as my boot times were getting bad. Back to 4 seconds now

LuckyBenski · 28 Jul 2018 at 22:56

SequoiaView is good software for hunting out space consumers... Maybe there's a newer tool available.

Windows 10 seems quite good at clearing its old junk out, especially if you don't keep Windows.old.

MagicBoy · 29 Jul 2018 at 00:26

Run disk cleanup and get to clear up the system files. You'll get a load back from old windows updates.

mdaw · 29 Jul 2018 at 12:28

Thanks all for the suggeations. I will give some of these suggestions a try. I have just bought a new 860 evo 500gb as i have an old hard disk that i wanted to transfer stuff from onto an ssd. I was thinking of putting that stuff onto the 840 evo and ghosting the OS drive onto the new 860 evo ssd if the clean doesnt make much difference.

Rroff · 29 Jul 2018 at 12:53

Yeah disk cleanup with admin and remove old OS files, etc. will save about as much space as a fresh install once you start actually using that install.

If you use Spotify its caching is pretty mad unless you modify the prefs file and can eat 10s of GB of storage space - check the size of the %localappdata%\spotify\data folder.

Raumarik · 29 Jul 2018 at 17:36

Disable hibernation unless you use it, that'll free up several GB itself.