Why is windows 7 taking up so much hard drive space?

Question

I have just built a computer with a 60GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. After installing windows 7 home premium, the drivers, chrome, and running windows update a few times it now only has 11GB left on the SSD. This is after doing disk cleanup and removing all but the last backup image. The only windows features installed are the ones by default during a clean install. I have since removed all the games via add/remove features. I've also made sure that the recycling bin is empty. So I'm still left with only 11GB of space left. I have 16GB of ram and was hoping that there would be at least 16GB free for virtual memory. The box that windows 7 came in says it requires 16GB free disk space.

I had planned on installing IIS as well but having the actual sites on the 2TB drive. The ulitmate goal is to have just windows on the SSD and everything else on the HDD.

Solution 1

My windows install was shrunk massively when i disabled paging! that will give you back at least around 6GB - 10GB. If you 16Gb of RAM then paging wont be needed at all. Disable the hibernation as advised above and the system restore and you will have shaved a fair bit off it!

Linky This is link to disk analyser tool where you can what is taking up all the space on the system. From there you can delete and tweak your system. Thats what i did anyway. I only use windows for games. So i dont need much space on SSD. Got my games on HDD.

(could always jump ship to linux ;) its no where near as bloated! Thats what i use.)

Good luck!

Bill

Solution 2

You've definitely got a problem. I recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate, SQl Server Express and Visual Studio Express and the total on my hard drive (and I haven't really cleaned up) is about 24GB.

Have you checked your Windows Temp folder? How about your Downloads folder? Have you run the Disk Cleanup utility?

Solution 3

If you installed windows update then you can have a couple of system restore entries in your system. These can be removed by going to the tab on Disk Cleanup for the drive. Clicking on the Clean Up button under System Restore and Shadow Copies (found on the More Options tab) should restore some space for you. You'll have to start Disk Cleanup in administrator mode or click on the Clean up system files button in order to enable the More Options tab.

One other thing to note too is that Windows allocates 75% of your RAM size as hibernation file. For a computer with 16GB of RAM, that means you've got approximately 12GB allocated to hibernation! See this document for how to reduce your hibernation file's size.

Also, Windows allocates quite some space to virtual memory (that is the file on your hard drive that windows uses as 'additional RAM'). This is usually the amount of RAM installed on your computer plus 300MB. If this scenario holds true for you, then you lose somewhere around 16GB as well and you may want to adjust that. Check this page for how to check and, if you're not satisfied, change the size of your virtual memory.

If all else fails, I'll recommend you download and install CCleaner. It is a small utility that allows you to clean up most of the nooks and crannies in your computer.

Comments

[Oliver Salzburg]

This should get you started: blog.superuser.com/2011/05/10/…

[Charles Lambert]

i disabled the hibernate, and instead of disabling the paging, i moved it to the other drive. Thanks a ton!

[William Fleming]

No bother mate. Have fun the SSD was the best upgrade to PC I made in a long time.