Drive space just vanishing

[harry_redhead]

Hey,

So I want to install a new game, but needed some space. I freed up just 19GB on my SSD, so I selected all files/folders in my C: folder, and they registered 45.6GB taken. However, if I go into the properties of my drive it says I have taken up 91GB. Where is this other 46GB? Is my SSD or system faulty?

Thanks,
Harry

EDIT: I have deleted 5GB hidden in the Windows Update folders using Disk Clean Up

 

[camieabz]

If you have a mail client on the system, look in sent and deleted folders for anything that might be 'properly deleted'. My older version of MS Outlook 2007, had a data file management option, which compressed the e-mail file, and got rid of the space the old e-mails took up. The first time I ran it, it saved a lot of space - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/reduce-the-size-of-your-mailbox-and-outlook-data-files-pst-and-ost-e4c6a4f1-d39c-47dc-a4fa-abe96dc8c7ef

Consider tweaking system restore function to limit the amount of data it can use. I limit mine to 10GB, so it will cycle out older restore points. That generally limits it to 2-5, depending on how much data each point requires - https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5482/make-system-restore-use-less-space-in-windows-7/

Compress / Zip rarely used personal folders, such as images or videos. Consider compressing images with png optimisers, and so on.

Also check page file settings, and consider a manual page file. I generally set the minimum to 512MB for 8GB of RAM and below, and 1024MB for 16GB of RAM and above. Then I set the maximum size to equal the amount of system present, so 8192MB for 8GB, 16384MB for 16GB and so on.
It might seem counter intuitive to have a smaller swapfile for less RAM, but I've found it works pretty well. As long as the values are multiples of 64. Windows 7 automatically takes 1.5x your RAM, so it will want 12GB for swap on a system with 8GB of RAM. Not sure about Windows 10, as I set a manual swap on first boot.

It would actually help if you told us your Operating System. For example, Windows 7's hibernate feature isn't something everyone uses, and if disabled, can save up to 5-6GB of disk space. Again, not sure about Windows 10. Only been using it a week, but under the surface it's pretty similar.

Perhaps download CCleaner and Treesize. The first can help clean out your system of older temp files, Internet files, while the latter can help you quickly see where your drive space is being used.

 

[harry_redhead]

If you have a mail client on the system, look in sent and deleted folders for anything that might be 'properly deleted'. My older version of MS Outlook 2007, had a data file management option, which compressed the e-mail file, and got rid of the space the old e-mails took up. The first time I ran it, it saved a lot of space - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/reduce-the-size-of-your-mailbox-and-outlook-data-files-pst-and-ost-e4c6a4f1-d39c-47dc-a4fa-abe96dc8c7ef

Consider tweaking system restore function to limit the amount of data it can use. I limit mine to 10GB, so it will cycle out older restore points. That generally limits it to 2-5, depending on how much data each point requires - https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5482/make-system-restore-use-less-space-in-windows-7/

Compress / Zip rarely used personal folders, such as images or videos. Consider compressing images with png optimisers, and so on.

Also check page file settings, and consider a manual page file. I generally set the minimum to 512MB for 8GB of RAM and below, and 1024MB for 16GB of RAM and above. Then I set the maximum size to equal the amount of system present, so 8192MB for 8GB, 16384MB for 16GB and so on.
It might seem counter intuitive to have a smaller swapfile for less RAM, but I've found it works pretty well. As long as the values are multiples of 64. Windows 7 automatically takes 1.5x your RAM, so it will want 12GB for swap on a system with 8GB of RAM. Not sure about Windows 10, as I set a manual swap on first boot.

It would actually help if you told us your Operating System. For example, Windows 7's hibernate feature isn't something everyone uses, and if disabled, can save up to 5-6GB of disk space. Again, not sure about Windows 10. Only been using it a week, but under the surface it's pretty similar.

Perhaps download CCleaner and Treesize. The first can help clean out your system of older temp files, Internet files, while the latter can help you quickly see where your drive space is being used.

Hi Camieabz,

With your first suggestion, I have permanently deleted all sent and deleted emails to no avail.
With your second suggestion, I have already set the manual page file to 512MB.

I use Windows 10 Pro (Build 17134) and have tried CCleaner before making this thread. I am stumped at the 45GB of lost storage space.
Thanks for your help though!

 

[camieabz]

Ok, definitely try Treesize Free, and see what it reports, and where all the data is. Also, check your system restore points. With all the updates and whatnot, you might have gained a few.

 

[harry_redhead]

Ok, definitely try Treesize Free, and see what it reports, and where all the data is.

Thank you!

Using Treesize, I found out that my Roaming folder was taking almost 50% of my drive up. It turned out to be Vortex holding onto various different files for games I had deleted. Since the whole AppData folder is hidden, this explains why I couldn't find the space Vortex was taking in File Explorer