Can temp files be about 10 gb?

[RachokingzOz]

I have one SSD and one HDD. My SSD is fine, but my HDD just lost like 10gb~ of space. This has happened before one and I lost like 20 or 30gb of space. After like 2 or 3 days it would just come back. Is it the temporary files that are taking all the space and how can I get rid of it or will windows do it for me.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Where is your page file ?

 

[dudio]

Normally Windows uses a PageFile to dump stuff temporarily to your C: drive and it can get fairly large if it is unrestricted. I'd imagine your SSD is your C: drive tho, unless you told it to use the HDD instead (assuming Windows is on your SSD).
You can get software to check where your space is being used up on a drive:
http://lifehacker.com/5835082/five-best-hard-drive-space-analyzers

 

[Colif]

Your link just goes to lifehacker front page

Try running windirstat, it will show you what is using most space. If it is temp space, be nice to know what is using it.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

1. Because of the size and nature of page files of rewriting data to the same spot over and over, it's oft recommended that the page file be moved to the Hard drive; same for temp files. This is where I asked. If it's on C:\ then it has no bearing on your question.

2. The are many utilities which identify what is taking up what space on a drive, but they don't identify files that have disappeared.

3. So we are left wandering what is taking up that space . Given the size you mention, you have all the tools you need to identify large files.


a. Reboot you machine

b. Search the drive using *.* in Windows explorer

c. Mouse over the "size' column and a drop down arrow will appear, click it and select 'gigantic'. This will list all files > 128 MB. Take a screenie so that you can identify what these files are before deciding whether to delete


d. Repeat the steps above but using *.tmp anything you find dated after your last reboot can be deleted.

e. Repeat the above with *.dmp

f. Use Windows Disk Cleanup, check all the boxes

g. Set age file to a fixed size ... This should eliminate the size changing. Unless tight on space, use amount = RAM
https://www.winhelp.us/set-paging-file-to-a-fixed-size-in-windows.html

 

[aquielisunari]

I have one SSD and one HDD. My SSD is fine, but my HDD just lost like 10gb~ of space. This has happened before one and I lost like 20 or 30gb of space. After like 2 or 3 days it would just come back. Is it the temporary files that are taking all the space and how can I get rid of it or will windows do it for me.

can tell you that. When it's open you can click on Analyze(after you have checked all of the areas you want Ccleaner to clean) and it will offer you a list of all files and their individual sizes that Ccleaner can clean.

Windirstat gives you a visual representation along with a file tree. CHOOSE INDIVIDUAL drive when it asks. That will make it less cluttered.

https://www.top-password.com/blog/change-disable-or-move-pagefile-in-windows-10/ might help.

By default Windows will not automatically clean your temp files. You can schedule that task http://www.thewindowsclub.com/automate-disk-cleanup-utility-windows.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3473888/reclaim-disk-space-windows.html might help.

Can temp files be about 10 gb

This user had about 30GB of temp files.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3425971/local-disk-space-increasing-constantly.html?siteFrom=EPR-8807#xtor=EPR-8807
hey there thanks for the answers everyone. And this method as aquielisunari says worked forme. it was the media cache files which took up a lot of space. i freed around 30 GB. thanks a lot

 

[RachokingzOz]

Normally Windows uses a PageFile to dump stuff temporarily to your C: drive and it can get fairly large if it is unrestricted. I'd imagine your SSD is your C: drive tho, unless you told it to use the HDD instead (assuming Windows is on your SSD).
You can get software to check where your space is being used up on a drive:
http://lifehacker.com/5835082/five-best-hard-drive-space-analyzers

Windows is on my SSD.

 

[RachokingzOz]

Well not all the drive space came back, soo I am wonder if that is a problem?

 

[Colif]

how old is the hdd? what brand is it? Might want to test the health of the hdd.
if its western digitial, Download and run Datalife guard for windows
If its Seagate, download and run Seatools for windows
If its another brand, download and run the trial of HDtune and check the health tab for smart scores

I had an old drive that was randomly losing space, I had to delete a partition on it to give C enough space to live in, which seemed odd as I was running disk cleanup almost every week. IT was due for retirement as I assume I had lots of bad sectors

Did you look at Windirstat?

 

[RachokingzOz]

how old is the hdd? what brand is it? Might want to test the health of the hdd.
if its western digitial, Download and run Datalife guard for windows
If its Seagate, download and run Seatools for windows
If its another brand, download and run the trial of HDtune and check the health tab for smart scores

I had an old drive that was randomly losing space, I had to delete a partition on it to give C enough space to live in, which seemed odd as I was running disk cleanup almost every week. IT was due for retirement as I assume I had lots of bad sectors

Did you look at Windirstat?

The HDD is about 3-4 years old and it is a WD Blue. Crystaldisk shows that it is fine.

 

[RachokingzOz]

Where is your page file ?

ON SSD

 

[Colif]

it shouldn't have been page file anyway unless you have like 32gb of ram in system. Page files max size = your installed ram, and most of us don't have 32gb in systems yet.

Do you have any backup programs that might have chewed the space? Or any download programs?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Page files are dynamic unless you make them a fixed size. To fit a full memory dump it's installed RAM + a lil bit ... MS used to recommend 1.5 times installed RAM. Before SSDs, those looking to optimize their systems or dual booting would make an OS partition (or partitions), followed by a small partition for page and temp files. This gave a bit of a speed boost as these files will always be at the outer edge of the drive where it's twice as fast as the inner... it also allowed two OSs to share the same page and temp file space.

So yes, on a 16 GB system, your page file could be 4 GB at one point in time and 14 GB at another.... or even more, again, if you haven't set a limit. But if its on your SSD, this is not the cause of your issue. As the page file however is a "temp file", on 99% of installations the two are in the same physical volume.

I have already explained how to remove the ones that Windows leaves behind:

1. Use Windows Disk Cleanup
2. Do a file search on *.tmp and delete all file older than the last boot date / time