[SOLVED] Win10 updates taking free ssd space slowly.

[IanMalcolm89]

Hi all,

I have seen my boot drive’s free space slowly disappearing and I believe Windows updates are the cause. The last update (1/13/22) brought my free space down from 94gb to 89gb. I feel like there is a large portion of free space that has been used that I can restore, I have not found where to look. Does anybody know more?

My boot drive is a Samsung 850 Evo SSD.

Thank you!

 

[punkncat]

Type in 'Storage Sense' and flip the selector to "on".

You can also perform a disk cleanup through properties.

 

[Colif]

Windows updates should all be going into an area marked as Reserved Storage on C drive. I don't think it should grow every update though.

How much disk space is allocated for reserved storage?
Reserved storage starts by reserving about 7 GB of hard disk space and the amount of space reserved will vary over time based on the device. The reserved space can be reduced by removing unused optional features and languages, such as:

• Installed optional features: Many optional features are available for Windows. These may be pre-installed, acquired on demand by the system, or installed manually by you. When an optional feature is installed, Windows will increase the amount of reserved storage to ensure there is space to maintain the feature on your device when updates are installed. You can see which features are installed on your device by going to Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Manage optional features. You can reduce the amount of space required for reserved storage on your device by uninstalling optional features you are not using.
• Installed languages: Windows is localized into many languages. Although most organizations only use one language at a time, some users may switch between two or more languages. When additional languages are installed, Windows will increase the amount of reserved storage to ensure there is space to maintain these languages when updates are installed. You can see which languages are installed on your device by going to Settings > Time & Language > Language. You can reduce the amount of space required for reserved storage on your device by uninstalling languages you are not using.

When enabled, reserved storage will instantly reserve its full allotment of disk space. However, on disk-space-constrained devices, enabling reserved storage will leave the user space and will only take the minimum—which is 2% of system volume capacity or 3GB of disk space, whichever is lower—to ensure that the device is functional and accessible to the user for further operations.

from link above

if you haven't clean installed for a few years, the feature might not have taken all 7gb but only 3gb and be growing as you see.

which version of win 10

1. right click start
2. choose run...
3. type winver and press enter
4. current version is 21H2

Windirstat might give you an idea of what is using the space - https://windirstat.net/

 

[gardenman]

It's very likely a Restore Point that is created before the update.

Click start / run and type in rstrui.exe and press OK.
Click on "Choose a different" at the bottom.
Choose Next.

Stop

How many restore points do you see? Do you see one that was created recently when you lost all of the space?

Hit Cancel because you don't want to restore right now.

If you seen multiple restore points, then you can clear them all out, then create a single new restore point.

Run sysdm.cpl and go the System Protection tab.
From the Protection Settings list, be sure to choose your main drive.
From here, you can click on Configure / Delete to remove all restore Points. This will likely free up the space you are missing.

Be sure to create at least 1 new good restore point before closing it out by going back to the System Protection tab and clicking on Create.

If all of this fits your situation and describes what happened to your space, then I recommend just leaving it alone and letting it do what it needs to do. If you get really low on space, Windows should automatically delete restore points. Also, I do not recommend disabling System Protection on the drive. Some here will tell you it's useless. It has saved me once. I've seen it save others recently too.