SSD Trouble...

ianmer

Member
I think I've done something very silly and I don't know what...

I ran through all sorts of optimisations for SSD and its run fine since I got this rig from PCS back in the day

I posted a cry for help back in 2015 on the pinned SSD management thread back in 2015 when I was considering upgrading to Windows 10 - unfortunately there was no response and even more unfortunately I was drunk one night and opted to go ahead with the upgrade.. didn't notice any issues and that was a whiolewhile ago.

However... I recently got a pop up from Windows to say that my space was filling up and asking if I would like to delete an old version of Windows to save space. Had a quick look and my SSD is nearly at capacity. It's a 240GB and I use it solely as my boot drive so I have no idea why this is happening. I've looked at the files there and there is nothing there really. I did opt to put a coule of things there at various points but nothing major and nothing that should fill it up. There is a temp folder there which I wasn't expecting to see - I set my temp folder to the 2TB hard drive when originally setting up.

I've gone to the first port of call - Google and not been able to find any useful information. One thread I stumbled across actually recommended to 'just delete some stuff and it will be fine'... I was hoping someone on here may be able to impart some knowledge or advice! I would be very grateful!

Thanks in advance!
 

mishra

Rising Star
Install software WinDirStat, run scan and paste the screenshot of the result. It will show you what's taking up most space.
To remove old version of windows, just run "Disk Cleanup" utility.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
When you upgraded to Windows 10 the upgrade process saved your existing (i.e. old) Windows system in a folder called Windows.old. That folder contains your old Windows system files, your old config settings, and your old installed programs. It's there only so that you can revert back from Windows 10 to the original version of Windows.

Once you have decided to keep Windows 10 (and you only get 30 days to decide that) you can delete the Windows.old folder. The easiest way to do that is to use the Windows Disk Cleanup tool, to do that open File Explorer, right click on the drive, click Properties and then click the Disk Cleanup button on the window that opens.

When the Disk Cleanup Window opens click the System Files Cleanup button (this will include a bunch of system files that can also be cleaned). There will be a short delay whist it scans the disk looking at what can be cleaned up, then you'll then see a window with lots of check boxes, one of them will be for Previous Windows Installations so be sure to select that box. If you're running short of space you can probably safely select every box in that list - just be sure you know that you won't need any of that stuff (generally you don't) and then click OK.

If you'd like to free even more space and you never use hibernation then you can turn hibernation off, this will delete the hiberfil.sys file and it is typically large. To do this open an elevated command prompt and enter the command "powercfg -h off" (without the quotes).

You should now have recovered a bunch of space.....
 

ianmer

Member
Hi ubuysa

Thanks for the in depth response! I used the WinDirStat tool mishra recommended and turns out I had foolishly allowed iTunes to back up a huge chunk of data to the SSD as well as somehow downloading a ton of stuff that I would normally put on the HD.

However for the sake of optimisation whilst I was doing this I also went to delete the older Windows save through the Disk Cleanup. There was no option to do so?

disk cleanup1.png
disk cleanup2.png

When I select delete on the 2nd scrnsht nothing happens. Any ideas? It's no longer an issue tbh as I freed up about 80GB deleting the iTunes and downloaded files, I'm just curious now!
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I believe the upgrade to windows 10 triggers a scheduled deletion of the windows.old folder after 28 days, so it probably won't be present anymore.
 

LFFPicard

Godlike
Any ideas? It's no longer an issue tbh as I freed up about 80GB deleting the iTunes and downloaded files, I'm just curious now!

That is most likely the main cause, whenever you do a backup of your iPhone, iPad or anything it saves it to the iTunes backup location. It never deleted an old backup so if you have done it often you will have multiple 1-3GB backup files sitting around.
Plus do not forget it keeps a copy of all your music, videos and pictures on the iTunes folder too. For this reason as soon as I got an SSD I put my windows media library on my external hard drive (Always plugge din anyway) to avoid taking up all the space.
 
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