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I have a small solid state drive on my work PC, 56.5Gb in size, that has my install of Windows 7 on it.

Here is a break down of the biggest folders/files:

Windows\: 22.1 Gb
pagefile.sys: 7.9Gb
Program Data\: 6.9Gb (90% of which is in \Microsoft\Search)
Users\: 6.8Gb
hiberfil.sys: 5.9Gb
Program Files (x86)\: 4.8Gb (50% of this is in \Common Files)
Program Files\: 1Gb

This leaves me with very little space on my solid state drive.

Unfortunately I am unable to re-install the operating system or change too many settings. Likewise I am unable to change this drive for another.

I use my computer to search the network lots, so my gut feeling is that the size of Program Data is necessary, or at least will be re-created in no time if I get rid of it. Is my gut right?

The biggest program I have on this solid state drive is Microsoft Office, which due to a licensing issue here at work (don't ask) I am unable to re-install onto another drive. Even still, it is only 576Mb in size and wouldn't give me much of a gain in space. I have re-installed as much as I possibly can onto another drive, except for Google Chrome which doesn't seem to have an option to install it elsewhere anymore (am I missing something there?).

Is there anything I can safely delete from one of these folders to free up some space? (unneeded back ups for instance?)

Is there any other advice you can offer me to free up some space on my solid state drive.

Jimmery
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    First step unless you hibernate your system disable it. Even if you do since you have SSD you should still disable it. A cold boot with a SSD will be very fast well worth the 7GB you gain from doing so. I would also get yourself a flash drive and place the pagefile on it. You can also disable indexing and that will get you space from Windows Search. – Ramhound Apr 04 '14 at 11:01
  • I never use hibernate, so I will disable this. Unfortunately I do use this machine to search loads tho, so indexing is going to be very useful to me. – Jimmery Apr 04 '14 at 11:03
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    @Ramhound I disabled the hibernating following the steps on this page: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tr-dojo/delete-hiberfilsys-by-disabling-windows-hibernate-function/ and it has cleared up loads of room in one go. Many thanks. Add this as an answer and I will mark you as correct. – Jimmery Apr 04 '14 at 11:08
  • This may help to see where it has gone: [How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows?](http://superuser.com/questions/8248/how-can-i-visualize-the-file-system-usage-on-windows) – Dave Apr 04 '14 at 11:44
  • @DaveRook Already using WinDirStat :) – Jimmery Apr 04 '14 at 11:51
  • You might be able to reduce the size of the Paging File. The easiest way is to use the Peak Commit Charge shown in Process Explorer System Information http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653 . The sum of physical memory and pagin file size needs to be more than the peak commit charge you see after running your normal workload for some time. – David Marshall Apr 04 '14 at 12:06
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    I you have not already done so, use the recently added Windows Update Cleanup feature of Disk Cleanup. http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2013/10/08/breaking-news-reduce-the-size-of-the-winsxs-directory-and-free-up-disk-space-with-a-new-update-for-windows-7-sp1-clients.aspx – David Marshall Apr 04 '14 at 12:12

4 Answers4

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I would recommend you follow a SSD optimization guide.

Move your page file to another hard drive and disable hibernating.

This will save you space and prolong the life of your SSD.

To move your page file.

  1. Right Click Computer | Choose Properties

  2. Click Advanced System Settings

  3. Performance Tab | Click Settings

  4. Advanced Settings Tab | Virtual Memory | Click Change

  5. Uncheck Automaticaly manage page file

  6. Clicking on disk will allow you to set paging file where you want

To Disable Hibernating

Open Command Prompt.

Type

“powercfg -h off”

For more SSD optimization tips, see Here

Wessel
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    Doesn't look like Ramhound is going to respond, so as this answer has the same method they suggested, I'm going to mark this as correct. – Jimmery Apr 15 '14 at 14:28
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if you did not user disk cleanup windows utility. Then install spacesniffer and let it analyze your disk. You may find some folders which are not needed. You can post the picture of it here I guess

Aha so I see the outlook file is the main problem here! Yes it can be moved, so do it and you are done. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/move-your-outlook-data-file-to-another-location-HA001112480.aspx

Vitas
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  • I would especially want to see what is so big in your users folder – Vitas Apr 04 '14 at 13:40
  • MS Outlook pst file is roughly 85% of that users file. Its my work email, and I get a lot of email, so I cant get rid of it, but can it be moved? – Jimmery Apr 04 '14 at 14:39
  • Oh I thought I have already answered, but did not. YES it can be moved and that will fix your problem. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/move-your-outlook-data-file-to-another-location-HA001112480.aspx – Vitas Apr 25 '14 at 11:04
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Given that your windows dir is 22 gig, you likely have all the windows update service pack install files in the winsxs folder. This will become huge. If you are sure you won't uninstall any servicepack, you should consider removing them.

See this link on how to finalise your servicepack installations, and remove the installation files.

In your case, it would be a much better choice to request a larger drive, and then use image tools such as Acronis True Image, norton ghost, or other backup software to clone your SSD to another bigger SSD.

Also, you may have access to a network share. You can look into storing files there that are less important. For example, if your company has an exchange server, storing the email on the server itself is faster and doesn't take up any space on your end.

LPChip
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You could also try to disable System Restore: Microsoft guide

mtak
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  • And can then re-enable it. That will clear it. I did that a lot in XP days, no doubt works in W7 too. – barlop Apr 08 '14 at 00:17