SSD slowly losing storage space

[Stg-Flame]

For the last month or so, my OS SSD has been slowly but steadily losing space. I'm now down to 9.9GB and I can't figure out why I'm losing space. I haven't been installing or downloading anything to that drive. I have a separate 256GB SSD for Steam and an extra 1TB HDD for music, pictures, mods, downloads, etc. The only things I've put on my OS SSD (128GB) is two really old PC games and some screenshots for bills.

I've been using WinDirStat to check what's using the most space and it seems Windows and <Unknown> are taking up 30.4GB each which is half of my available space. Users, <Files>, Program Files (x86), Program Files, Program Data, and Nvidia folders take up almost 38GB collectively which brings me to almost 100GB of used space right there.

Upon looking further into directories, it seems under Windows, my winsxs folder contains 16,725 different folders named amd64_microsoft... or x86_system.data.randomnumberstrings. Since I don't have anything related to AMD in my system, I'm inclined to believe I don't need these folders but I'll do research on them before I delete anything.

Is there anything that can be done to figure out what is constantly being added to my SSD? I've scanned my system with Spybot, Avast, Malwarebytes, and Kaspersky and all of them came up empty with the exception of a few tracking cookies. Also, I should probably throw this in that I know I cross-threaded this topic with the Software subforum, but only one kind person is replying and this is making me nervous.

 

[nerp]

Are you running System Restore? Maybe dial back how much space it uses? Are you using volume shadow copy? Do a disk cleanup routine then click "clean up system files" after -- there could be debug and dump files taking up space too.

 

[john3850]

http://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-your-winsxs-folder-on-windows-7-or-8/
might help

 

[master_shake_]

check the windows/temp directory.

might be filling up with cab files.

windows does that sometimes...

 

[Stg-Flame]

Are you running System Restore? Maybe dial back how much space it uses? Are you using volume shadow copy? Do a disk cleanup routine then click "clean up system files" after -- there could be debug and dump files taking up space too.

I'm not running System Restore. That's actually the first thing I disable when I build a new system. It has it's uses, but I'm just used to manually backing everything up once a month (important files like bill screenshots and game saves I back up weekly) that I don't need it.

As for disc cleanup, I ran that already and it was going to free up a whole 237MB.

http://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-your-winsxs-folder-on-windows-7-or-8/
might help

Thanks for the link. I'll give that a look as I definitely don't need almost 17,000 files taking up almost 14GB collectively.

check the windows/temp directory.

might be filling up with cab files.

windows does that sometimes...

I'll check that out. Thanks for all the replies.

 

[JimmiG]

Upon looking further into directories, it seems under Windows, my winsxs folder contains 16,725 different folders named amd64_microsoft... or x86_system.data.randomnumberstrings. Since I don't have anything related to AMD in my system, I'm inclined to believe I don't need these folders but I'll do research on them before I delete anything..

The x86-64 architecture is often referred to as AMD64 since AMD created it. Intel was working on the IA-64 architecture at the time, which was one giant fiasco so they licensed AMD's implementation. So you definitely need those folders even with an Intel CPU.

 

[Topweasel]

The x86-64 architecture is often referred to as AMD64 since AMD created it. Intel was working on the IA-64 architecture at the time, which was one giant fiasco so they licensed AMD's implementation. So you definitely need those folders even with an Intel CPU.

Well Licensed is a strong word, more like had rights to it by default. But you are right if its a 64 bit machine its going to have tons of system files referring to AMD or AMD64 and would caution people to tread lightly there.


The 5 biggest things that take up lots of space in Windows are A. swap file usually as large as your memory can expand if needed. B. Hibernate, if enabled will have a file as large as your memory. C. Update files chances are every update you have installed is leaving its installer for uninstalls on your drive use system cleanup with the advanced option to clear that out. D. Not used by many at home but make available offline takes up a ton of space if you are using it haphazardly. E. System Restore, it defaults to allowing itself like 15% of the drive, on a 250 that's nearly 35GB.

 

[corkyg]

If you are online a lot, you build up temporary Internet files constantly. Every now and then you need to clean house.

 

[bononos]

I'm not running System Restore. That's actually the first thing I disable when I build a new system. It has it's uses, but I'm just used to manually backing everything up once a month (important files like bill screenshots and game saves I back up weekly) that I don't need it.

As for disc cleanup, I ran that already and it was going to free up a whole 237MB.
........

In case you didn't know - there the "cleanup system files" option in the disk cleanup utility which needs the admin password (if you're not running as admin) that will search for more files to clean.

 

[john3850]

I have been using a 1.5GB ram drive for my temporary Internet files along my user temp files which deletes the junk files on shut down to avoid cleaning.
The system restore and swap or paging files are still on the system drive.

 

[KingFatty]

You might be able to free up some space in your Winsxs folder. That keeps backups of all your drivers, whether you are using them now or not. That way, windows always has a driver handy if you ever plug in an old peripheral or something, and won't need to search for and download them again.

But if you never plan to use the old AMD drivers (perhaps from an earlier PC build?), you could delete them. I'm sure you could delete a bunch from winsxs. Try the disk cleanup tip, where you click the button to clean system files, in the link above from John 3850. Hopefully that will trim some GB from your Winsxs directory.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I'll check into cleaning up the Winsxs folder, but I just loaded up my PC after not being on it for about three days and I'm back to 17.4GB.

At this point I'm considering installing my other copy of Win 7 64 on my spare SSD and see if I have the same fluctuation as I have now. I don't have a degree in computer science, but I'm pretty sure harddrive storage space is not supposed to randomly lose and gain two GB every few days.

 

[Topweasel]

Yes it can. As i stated the swap file can fluctuate and by several GB if its specially if its been along session. It defaults to about your memory size and if you need more it will grow from there.