Win10: Space on C: drive *rapidly* dwindling in the last days

[flexy]

I had my partitions to have about 15GB-20GB free on my C: drive, 80GB total for my current Win 10 installation.

This worked fine for the last weeks, since I run Win 10.

Today I am checking and I see there is only 5.94GB left from a 80GB system partition.

I am checking everything, using tools like WindirStat, CCleaner, Disk Cleanup, checking my temp folder etc. but I don' see WHAT is taking away the space! (I didn't see anything in Windirstat which I usually use if I quickly want to see some large files/folder)

Now..one hour later, just now and I check again and free space on C: is 3.93GB. I have no idea why! 15GB is "missing". I did not install anything on C: and there is no logical reason why the 15GB buffer free space should be gone.
Pagefile is still 1GB and my System Restore for C: is not even active! I am not a computer noob by a long-shot, this is why I am so perplexed not finding what is taking up the space...and I mean something is taking it up RAPIDLY.

Win10 64x

Edit: The Irony: Just a few days I was considering shrinking my C: partition again since free space was constantly about 16GB-20GB and I though I can easily take away a 10GB or so.

Edit: The problem is solved. It was an "out of control" Windows.edb file caused by Windows search indexing content. Solution somewhere here in thread. For each file type you need to specify whether Windows search should only index file properties or content.

 

[bbhaag]

Hibernation file maybe? I know before I disabled it on my 8.1 computer it was taking a rather large amount of space.

 

[flexy]

Solved:

This was sort-of tricky!

It was a 30GB Windows.edb file from Windows search in

C:\\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb

On some systems this can be 50-100 GB (!!)...not cool if you're off a 128 or 256GB SSD as system drive.

What was tricky is that tools like Windirstat did not show this file when they are not run as Administrator.

The only "fix" I found is stopping Windows search service and deleting this file, or go to indexing options and "delete and rebuild". I really don't want Windows Search taking up 30GB or more...this is entirely stupid!

Correction: Researching this online, some report they had 300GB and one even a 500GB Windows.edb file ...

 

[Ketchup]

Good find flexy. I looked at this on a couple machines I have running 10, and it is only 58 MB in one, 24 MB in the other. This could be due to the fact that I have Suggestions and Online results turn off in Cortana. Worth a shot if you don't need those, and don't want the file to start growing to a ridiculous size again.

 

[JackMDS]

This is a Portable Freeware that can tell in less than a minute what is taking what on Hard Drive/SSD etc.

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=36

 

[TeknoBug]

^ mine is also 56MB.

And yes turn off WSearch service, and also add a key "Windows Search" with AllowCortana 0 to regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Policies/Microsoft/Windows

 

[Dahak]

This is a Portable Freeware that can tell in less than a minute what is taking what on Hard Drive/SSD etc.

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=36

While it links to treesizefree, it will still give the same issue.

That the program not run "As Administrator" which will cause some of the system files not to show up. TreeSize Free is the same, you have to make sure that you run "As Administrator" for to find all the files.

In any case, I just took a quick look at mine, and its around 700MB.... not sure if that is due to
1 - this was an upgrade from 8.1
2 - have multiple hard drives 2 are about 20% free

 

[flexy]

^ mine is also 56MB.

And yes turn off WSearch service, and also add a key "Windows Search" with AllowCortana 0 to regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Policies/Microsoft/Windows

Good tips!

I mean I will monitor this now. I never really cared for Search that much, I mean WHEN I search then really only for locations of files...or to quickly search-for and start software by typing...but it still eludes me why this should take-up several GBs

 

[flexy]

By the way I also have suggestions and online results at OFF, I never need this.

Anyway, so deleted the Windows.edb, restarted Search and today after about an hour where I was idle I come back to my PC and there is a warning there is ZERO space free on C:

Search re-generated a 32GB Windows.edb

 

[Ketchup]

Interesting. Here are some steps I found, if you did not try this yet:

1) Search for "Indexing Options" (under "Settings"). Open it.
2) Search "services" (or run "services.msc") and find "Windows Search". Stop the service.
3) Delete the Windows.edb file
4) Click "Modify" in the already-open "Indexing Options" panel, then click "Delete and Rebuild" for the index. You can also specify a different drive to store the index on.

Additionally, you may want to look in Indexing Options and make sure that only the data you want is being indexed.

 

[quikah]

By the way I also have suggestions and online results at OFF, I never need this.

Anyway, so deleted the Windows.edb, restarted Search and today after about an hour where I was idle I come back to my PC and there is a warning there is ZERO space free on C:

Search re-generated a 32GB Windows.edb

There is something messed up with your windows install. Do a refresh or reinstall.

I have not turned anything off and mine is about 58MB. It has zero to do with turning services on or off. It looks to be a bug.

 

[Dahak]

Well crap.. looked at my work laptop and its 2GB... hmm going to delete and rebuild and see what happens (2 drives, multiple partitions)

 

[Ketchup]

Are you using a Microsoft account to share data between the two? That could be part of it.

 

[flexy]

It sure is some bug but and not "my fault", and I am really not feeling to refresh, let alone to do a fresh install. Not at this point.

Using GPEDIT I now enabled some settings such as not indexing email attachments etc..etc.. so far it is "only" 4GB, but STILL way too big in my opinion.

I am also seeing that I am not the only one with this problem.

TBH, a 32GB and in some cases up to 500GB Windows.edb I think being a very serious bug, and this bug seems to exist at least since Win 7 and I have never seen an actual solution on the net for this, just workarounds like disabling search.

 

[flexy]

After a lot of research and also not too happy with that "Everything" (3rd party windows search alternative) doesn't integrate into the native Search I think I found the problem. (Even with Windows 10, my Windows.edb search database quickly gets several 10s of GB large).

When you go to the search options in Windows ("change how Window searches") you click on Advanced --> Filetypes

Here, FOR EVERY SINGLE FILE TYPE you have to specify whether it indexes "file properties only" or content.

(In those cases where the Windows.edb file gets unreasonable large (on some systems 100GB and more) it's likely set to index content for file types such as text, emails, PDF, etc..etc.)

I haven't found a tool to save me time there, so I stepped down each single file type and set EACH OF THEM to "file properties filter".

This should solve this. Seriously this drove me insane!

 

[Mushkins]

I'd like to add that this isn't really a "problem" per-se, Search Indexer is working as designed and it all depends on what exactly you have on your system as to whether or not you're going to have a massive index file. Your average user will never have to alter the index settings and will not have a space issue, but if you're someone with a few extra large hard drives in your system with a massive picture/document/etc collection and a big ol' outlook PST/OST file you're going to end up with a really big index unless you tweak the settings.

That being said, they should really have an Action Center popup when your index hits the ~2GB point to let you know that maybe you want to switch some stuff up.

 

[flexy]

Mushkin,

I *never* altered anything about my index settings before, nevertheless the file grew to bombastic size, unbeknownst to me.

It was especially tricky to find what exact file is taking up the space since this is a system file which was not shown running a tool like "Windirstat", UNLESS the tool is run as administrator. I am pretty PC/Win savvy but it took me a while to find WHAT is taking up the space, and of course the actual solution. I am also not the only one with this problem for sure.

 

[PliotronX]

I had a similar issue but completely different culprit with a production server about a month ago. I had discovered, to my horror, that a server's disk space was vanishing at a rate of about a gigabyte every 10 minutes on the host's disk dedicated to VHDs. Frantic, I researched and tried a lot of conventional methods. WinDirStat and TreeSize did not show where the space was going. All that was on the volume was a fixed VHD, so I wondered where the space was going. Turned out to be the VSS plopping useless copies into the System Volume Information folder. Had to run a command with diskshadow.exe to trim the oldest data. By default, apparently this folder/service can take up to 20% of the volume space but there was 15% free alotted (per NTFS recommendation). So I just capped that using a different vssadmin command. This is the equivalent of lowering the slider in System Restore which is not present on Windows Server, so this command was the only way...

Good to know about the search folder, I will keep that in mind. It takes way too much Googling to find out where HDD space is going when it is not readily apparent. Just checked my EDB and it sits at 1.5GB. Why does it seem larger than a bloated Access DB? Impressive.

 

[flexy]

I set ALL file types to "file properties filter" now and it's sitting at 2GB. Still big in my opinion but at least it's not growing any more like before