Freeing up disk space

Phonesis · 12 Mar 2018 at 11:36

I've got a 128gb SSD as my primary C drive and a far larger secondary drive for storage etc.

Been fine for years but with recent Windows 10 updates I have gone from 30gb free on my C drive to 11gb. It is starting to concern me now.

Tried all the usual (CCleaner, optimising drive, etc) but cannot reclaim much at all. Really want to get back to at least 25gb free.

Anything I can do/try?

TheVoice · 12 Mar 2018 at 11:48

Presumably you've also run Disk Cleanup in Windows?

Use a program like WinDirStat, it'll give you a visual representation of waht's taking up space and you can go from there. A 128GB SSD should be more than enough space, mine was usually almost half-empty if I hadn't installed any games etc to it.

wedrum · 12 Mar 2018 at 11:56

Do the disk clean up and system files. Done mine today and neatly 20gb from the Windows 10 upgrade files..

Phonesis · 12 Mar 2018 at 11:59

Oddly I did try Disk Cleanup and selected system files. It found only about 3gb's worth of stuff to remove. I ran it (took ages) and when I checked the SSD was still showing as having about 11gb left.

I'll try WinDirStat out. Worth removing all the log files and esd files?

Columbo · 12 Mar 2018 at 12:47

Are your Pagefile and Hibernation settings set to to Microsoft standard?
If so might by worth considering changing them, I turned hibernation off completely as I don't use it and saved 13gb, also I reduced the size of my pagefile from the same amount as my ram (32gb) down to 2gb so got nearly 40gb back and have not seen a single issue since I installed both W7 then W10.

Addtitionally install Treesize below and scan your C drive, it's a great little app for identify the biggest files on your drives.
https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

Phonesis · 12 Mar 2018 at 13:01

Good ideas there. Will check but think they are default Microsoft settings. Hoping Hibernation is on so I can switch it off and save some space.

Scort · 12 Mar 2018 at 13:01

You can safely delete the contents of %windir%\SoftwareDistribution to get some space back - but will have to stop the WU service first.

Maybe use TreeSizeFree to check where space is being used, it'll also show your page file and hiberfile too - both of those you can disable, especially if you have plenty of physical RAM and now use for the hibernation.

mrbazmondo · 12 Mar 2018 at 13:24

Disk cleanup, advanced, remove restore points. Remove previous versions of Windows and setup files. Empty c:/users/xxx/appdata/local/temp

Scort · 12 Mar 2018 at 14:18

As above, %userprofile%\temp (or %tmp% if you're a lazy typist

) and %windir%\temp can free up a bit of space, though usually, not much.

Phonesis · 13 Mar 2018 at 12:01

Well I managed to regain about 9gb last night trying all of the above. Removing old restore points was the most effective for me I think.

Still bit annoyed I have lost 10-15gb for no reason though. Tempted to use that Windows 10 Fresh Start option to reinstall Windows with all my files etc intact. Anyone tried it?

Phonesis · 14 Mar 2018 at 11:14

Update: So it turned out OneDrive was the cause of my sudden space issues. I didn't realise it stored the files in the cloud and locally too. I uploaded some large files to it recently and it meant my OneDrive local folder got huge. I then realised Windows 10 Creators Update lets you prevent this very thing from happening by enabling "Files on Demand" mode. After enabling that and then selecting Clear Space in all the local folders I saved 15gb.

mrbazmondo · 14 Mar 2018 at 11:29

If you haven't already you might free a bit more by clearing just the data (you can leave the history) from your browsers webcache. I think I got 6GB back last time I did.

Pocah · 16 Mar 2018 at 12:02

I would take a look see what you are using it all for. I have a number of PC's here and not one of them uses more than about 45GB for drive C. But really if you do need that much space then it's probably time to buy a 250GB ssd. They aren't expensive.

hornetstinger · 16 Mar 2018 at 12:21

Format it lol

Phonesis · 17 Mar 2018 at 09:32

Pocah said:
I would take a look see what you are using it all for. I have a number of PC's here and not one of them uses more than about 45GB for drive C. But really if you do need that much space then it's probably time to buy a 250GB ssd. They aren't expensive.

That's the odd thing. Swear it has just been consumed by windows updates.

Semple · 17 Mar 2018 at 09:58

Phonesis said:
Update: So it turned out OneDrive was the cause of my sudden space issues. I didn't realise it stored the files in the cloud and locally too. I uploaded some large files to it recently and it meant my OneDrive local folder got huge. I then realised Windows 10 Creators Update lets you prevent this very thing from happening by enabling "Files on Demand" mode. After enabling that and then selecting Clear Space in all the local folders I saved 15gb.

Onedrive is a sync client, so the files must remain locally. You have to Manually upload them if you want them stored in the cloud only.

Phonesis · 17 Mar 2018 at 12:39

Semple said:
Onedrive is a sync client, so the files must remain locally. You have to Manually upload them if you want them stored in the cloud only.

I think with this new Window 10 Creators Edition option it lets you save it all to cloud only and only download files on demand. Saves space locally.

Draeger · 17 Mar 2018 at 13:38

To the OP,

This thread with a few tweaks I posted a while back might assist.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/running-out-of-space-on-your-ssd-try-this.18496534/

bledd · 17 Mar 2018 at 16:59

Treesize Free
CCleaner
Disable system restore
Disk Cleanup

robs1 · 17 Mar 2018 at 18:11

I don't think anyone's mentioned Patchcleaner - finds orphaned files and deletes them (or moves them if you are nervous of deleting them!)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/patchcleaner/