Constant Disk Space Loss

[arch5]

Here is what has been going on. It has really been pissing me off. I have reinstalled Windows a few times, and this keeps plaguing my C: drive.

You see, I have 2 Drives (3 including the USB drive) on my PC. C to hold Windows, D to hold Games and all those other programs. The C drive is a 28.3GB SSD, which should hold Windows and run perfectly fine. But I keep running out of space, and I have checked about EVERYTHING- and I still don't know what is sucking it up.

-Yes, the Antivirus is on my C Drive
-Shadow Copies are held on the D Drive
-I use Disk Cleanup multiple times every day and it doesn't really do much
-Some days it's at 300-600MB, most days it is at 10-100MB.


See pic:

So, does anybody know why this is happening? Any fixes? (Probably not a virus)

 

[Vegeta897]

So you say you lose up to 600mb? Yet I see 14mb free on your C?

Step one, clean up your damn C drive if you've got less than a gb free even without the space loss.

Are you sure it's not virtual memory? Or internet cache stuff? Or some other cache? I'm pretty sure this is normal, as I used to be in your shoes with my C drive having very low space and this fluctuation making it apparent.

Conclusion, clean up your C. Or get a bigger drive, because 28gb is kind of small.

 

[arch5]

So you say you lose up to 600mb? Yet I see 14mb free on your C?

Step one, clean up your damn C drive if you've got less than a gb free even without the space loss.

Are you sure it's not virtual memory? Or internet cache stuff? Or some other cache? I'm pretty sure this is normal, as I used to be in your shoes with my C drive having very low space and this fluctuation making it apparent.

Conclusion, clean up your C. Or get a bigger drive, because 28gb is kind of small.

It's actually 32GB, but when I format it to install Windows it comes out to 28 GB and 2 GB of "Unallocated Space"

Anyway, I turned off Disk Defrag (if I remember, it drains space when it does it's thing) but I really don't store that much on my C Drive. Google Chrome is on it, but all my downloads and stuff are on the D Drive.

So there isn't really much to clean up, but maybe there is a program out there that can help with cleaning it?

 

[Higlac]

Why don't you just put windows on your D drive and forget about the minimal space loss?

 

[arch5]

Why don't you just put windows on your D drive and forget about the minimal space loss?

The 28GB Drive is a SSD (Solid State Drive) and it boots up REALLY fast.

 

[StardogChampion]

Have you checked everything in C:\Documents and Settings\_your_accounts_\Application Data and My Documents folders? That's for XP but find the similar place.

Also, move your Temp directory from the C drive. Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables. Change TEMP and TMP in the top part to a folder on another HD.

 

[Escaep]

Try running CCleaner. Last time I ran it it removed about 600mb in system temporary files.

 

[Krynn72]

Windows takes from 10-15 gigs of space, so couple that with installing programs on there, plus temporary files, plus swap disk plus virtual memory, etc...

Basically, if you're going to install windows on a <30 gig drive, you best not install anything else on there and remove all other little minor things that take up disk space. And since you turned off disk defrag, that means your disk could be fragmented, which lowers the amount of usable space on the drive.

 

[Vegeta897]

Your main drive needs breathing room. I really doubt you're unable to clear up some space. You say you "don't really store much" on it but that can't be true.

Go download FolderSizes and take a look to see where your space is going.

 

[arch5]

Try running CCleaner. Last time I did it removed about 600mb in system temporary files.

Thank you SO much. I ran it and now:

I know 0.99GB isn't much, but still, better than 20MB.

 

[Viperidae]

Do you use any Adobe products? Adobe likes to dump all its temp/stockphoto/cache shit in C by default.

Windows should only take around 25 gigs by default.

 

[arch5]

Do you use any Adobe products? Adobe likes to dump all its temp/stockphoto/cache shit in C by default.

Windows should only take around 25 gigs by default.

Nah. The only Adobe stuff I have installed is Adobe Flash player (which is pretty much essential for browsing the web nowadays)

 

[xcellerate]

set your page file to your D drive and turn off hibernation.

 

[arch5]

set your page file to your D drive and turn off hibernation.

Hibernation is already off. As for a "page file", I don't know what you mean.

 

[Ravioli]

Start-run-%temp%

delete EVERYTHANG.

 

[Vegeta897]

I would like to reiterate that you should get FolderSizes, in fact everyone should. It's a very useful program.

 

[Ravioli]

I would like to reiterate that you should get FolderSizes, in fact everyone should. It's a very useful program.

Nice program, thx for sharing.

 

[xcellerate]

Hibernation is already off. As for a "page file", I don't know what you mean.

I'm not sure how to do it on windows 7 (which it looks like you have), but normally the page file is stored on the same drive the OS is installed on. But you can change it to be located on another drive, I have mine located on my D drive and it's 4.5gb, so that's how much space I've freed up on my C drive.

for vista you right click on 'my computer' go to 'advanced system settings', click on "settings" under "performance", go to the "advanced" tab, click "change" under "virtual memory", and then you set it to put the page file on another drive. Easy right?

 

[arch5]

I switched the Page File from C to D, and it went from 900MB free to 8GB free. Thanks.

 

[Barney Fife]

Download Treesize, see what's eating up your drive-space.

Good Luck.

 

[Warped]

LOL read the title as 'Constant Dick Space Loss'

/walks back towards the door slowly

 

[Barney Fife]

/walks back towards the door slowly

Yeah! Keep walking... Nothing more for you to say around here. :smoking:

 

[MorganFreeman911]

What does FolderSizes do in detail, exactly?

 

[Vegeta897]

It scans your HD or a selected area and shows gives you a list of disk usage from greatest to least. Just try it and you'll see. It's nice for finding out where all your space is going.

 

[Kyorisu]

The 28GB Drive is a SSD (Solid State Drive) and it boots up REALLY fast.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?49779-SSD-Tweak-Utility

Grab this (works for all SSDs) very handy tool. You do not want any temporary files or paging to occur on your SSD. The tool provides the ability to change temporary storage locations i.e. Temp, firefox, etc do so and place them on your second disk. As for foldersizes and similar such apps they do cool things like this;

One of my nearly full (50GB free) 1TB drives.