Free Space Diminishing

Topic

New Reply

It seems my SSD’s free space loses maybe 1 gb per week or two.

Any idea how I can figure out the culprit. I had this problem when I bought this Dell

about 2 years ago. I eliminated the previous versions feature and shut off bitlocker.

I do backup a few small files regularly to One Drive (always replacing previous file) and there is a very large One Drive folder (30 gb) on my SSD. I will be monitoring that.

Suggestions? Maybe a program to show me the largest files (that’s how I identified previous versions as being a space guzzler).

 

Mel

Reply | Quote

Replies

Use WinDirStat  to see where the largest file is.

Reply | Quote

The Everything search utility by voidtools can quickly sort by size all files on the drive to see large ones.  I use Wiztree from diskanalyzer.com to see which folders are using a lot of space.

And, it is often possible to free up 4 gigabytes or so by using the windows “disk cleanup” built in feature, type “disk cleanup” at start menu, then pick “clean up system files”.

Reply | Quote

Try the free, portable version of WizTree. It will scan your drive very quickly (faster than others like GemTools’ Folder Size)

You can then export the results to a .CSV file.

Do exactly the same a week later and compare the 2 CSV files. This is perhaps most easily carried out by using CSV Compare.

Hope this helps…

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

Reply | Quote

compiler wrote:

Suggestions? Maybe a program to show me the largest files

Portable Largest Files Finder

Reply | Quote

Thanks for the program information. My largest folder is SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION. It is 9.8 gb. There are about 6 folders with names like:

{39635d81-6a4c-11ed-8767-bd0f00af9250}{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}

This one is the largest: 6 gb

I don’t have permissions to do anything right now, and not sure what to do. Ideas?

Reply | Quote

Open Explorer (file).
Right click on C:
Properties > Disk Cleanup

How much can be cleaned?

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

Paul:

 

If I check everything, 104 MB.

If I look at %temp%, it flags 79 files, but maybe 1/2 gb worth.

 

Mel

 

Reply | Quote

Did you run Disk Cleanup as Administrator? If not, you won’t see all of what you can remove.
Start\All Programs\Accessories\System Tools
Right click on Disk Cleanup and choose “Run as Administrator“

Reply | Quote

PK–

When I click on start there is no all programs option This is in W11. However, I did find disk cleanup by right-clicking C drive in ExplorerI could not right click it but the ctrl/shift/enter combo worked which I THINK runs it as an administrator. It gave me the option to remove all but the last RESTORE point. It took about a milli-seconds so I thought it did nothing. But checking thereafter, I gained 9 gb of free space.I’ll have to see what was creating those restore points (it might be DELL crap, which I’ve  now disabled).

But also System Volume Information did expand by about the loss of free space. I bet I’ll find some kind of Restore info there?

I just checked and there is a READ ONLY System Restore file that it says is empty

Mel

 

Reply | Quote

Sorry, the instructions were for Win7.
In Win11, Disk Cleanup is in Windows Tools.

Reply | Quote

compiler wrote:

My largest folder is SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION. It is 9.8 gb.

https://www.howtogeek.com/282214/WHAT-IS-THE-SYSTEM-VOLUME-INFORMATION-FOLDER-AND-CAN-I-DELETE-IT/

Reply | Quote

Alex:

 

Thanks for the article. It was clear and well-written… and confirmed that the folder contains Restore Points. After I deleted all but the last restore point (and just created one new one), it is now 1.22 gb.

Problem is solved in terms of where the free space is going, but I’ll have to see what happens to restore points going forward. I strongly suspect Dell stuff and hope that I disabled it.

 

Mel

 

 

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

My largest folder is SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION

https://www.howtogeek.com/282214/WHAT-IS-THE-SYSTEM-VOLUME-INFORMATION-FOLDER-AND-CAN-I-DELETE-IT/

On drives formatted with the NTFS file system, this folder’s permissions are set to prevent everyone from accessing the folder, even users with Administrator permissions. Double-click the folder and you’ll see an error message saying the “location is not available” and “access is denied.” This is normal.

With TreeSize Free (‘Run As Administrator‘) you can access the ‘System Volume Information’ folder to look inside and see in detail what’s in there.

1 Desktop W11
1 Laptop W10
Both tweaked to look, behave and feel like Windows 95

Reply | Quote

compiler wrote:

After I deleted all but the last restore point (and just created one new one), it is now 1.22 gb.

You should manually restrict the max size of storage for restore points.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

Reply | Quote

Did that, too

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

Reply | Quote

Well, this morning started out as “The Plot Thickens.”

Once again, my free space declined by a gig. Once again SysVolInfo inc. in size by that amount.

I then went into System Restore and found “The Smoking Gun.” A Restore Point was added. The title was DELL SUPPORT ASSIST REMEDIATION.

How F-OBTRUSIVE.

 

I’m going to give it another day– I suspect an additional restore point. Then… let the uninstallation begin.

 

Reply | Quote

There’s more: On a hunch I checked Task Scheduler. Guess what’s there. Guess what won’t be there very shortly. I’m going to delete all that stuff today (delete the task then uninstall the Dell stuff today — hope it lets me)

 

Mel

Reply | Quote