unsure where to post this, but I randomly got LOTS of free space on non-system drive(s)... (Windows 11)

[Turbonium]

So I have this RAID-0 (striping) array that has been working flawlessly for years (2 x 250GB VelociRaptor drives).

For days now, it's been almost maxed out, with only around 1GB of free space. Accordingly, I've been in the process of setting up a NAS rig to move things over and free up space, and give myself more working space (I use the RAID-0 array as a working space for editing videos and such).

Strangely, just now, I noticed that I magically have 9+ GB of free space now, instead of ~1GB. And no files seem to be missing, afaik.

Any ideas on what's going on here? The drives seem to be working fine (I can access files and folders just fine, etc.). And the latest folder to be modified is, expectedly, days old, which is as it should be. So, basically, unless I'm losing my mind, I'm either compromised, or the drives are doing something funky (i.e. something is about to die).

Could use some peoples' expertise on this, how to diagnose things, etc.

 

[mindless1]

I assume you ran scandisk, and that the drive manufacturer's diagnostics won't work with them in the RAID array?

I would expedite setting up the additional storage and moving files off, in case there is some problem.

Just a random thought but what if during your video editing, somehow your file(s) defaulted to being saved to a different drive and once your source files are deleted, this gives you the extra 9GB? As someone who edits videos myself, I recognize how easily multiple GB of space come and go.

Once you get the data moved off, if it takes removing the drives from the RAID array to have regular drive connections you can check with the manufacturer's utility, or at least some 3rd party app like HDSentinel, then I'd do that.

A NAS is a great idea, but I'd also be thinking about getting a larger scratch drive for the client system. It's not hard to find 1TB+ SSD for good prices today... and it's even easier for me to spend someone else's money.

 

[JackMDS]

. It's not hard to find 1TB+ SSD for good prices today...

Yeah concur ... it seems that many real Computer affectionados has some difficulties given Up old Good solutions that became an History as the Time pass....

Example to current capacity: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=1tb+ssd+drive&crid=2QPDLVBWB1UEW

And, if the computer is Old but there is No need to replace it, this inxpensive interfaces can help too...

Amazon.com : pci 2 nvme

 

[Shmee]

Please use a decent capacity SSD (or SSDs) for this. A NAS rig is a good idea, but I think you should backup data from your volume, and replace it with solid state media, whether it be SATA or PCIe NVMe based.

 

[mindless1]

Once you get the data moved off, if it takes removing the drives from the RAID array to have regular drive connections you can check with the manufacturer's utility, or at least some 3rd party app like HDSentinel, then I'd do that.

In retrospect, I might not even bother checking the drives except out of curiosity, not to see if they might be reused. 250GB... they're REALLY old, right? Probably best to just retire them, and copy off any data you can before subjecting them to an exhaustive scan/test.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What kind of stuff is on these drives, could it be a program just decided to purge some kind of temp or cache folder or something?

 

[igor_kavinski]

A similar thing happened to me on my laptop's 240GB SSD. It had 35GB left when I started downloading a bunch of folders from Google Drive. When the downloads finished, there was about 500MB left and total downloaded size of the ZIP files was 42GB. Windows must have deleted some temp files. Highly unusual coz I've never seen Windows actually free up space in response to demand. It's Windows 8.1 with the latest updates.