So my OS and a few other programs are on my C: It's a SSD and only 64GM. Everything else, movies, videos, etc are on my 1 TB drive. My C: is full and I don't know why. I'm not adding things to it but for some reason it's packed. How do I figure out what is taking up the extra space?
No more room
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Windirstat ( http://windirstat.info ) will let you visually see your HDD use. Might be a good place to start
I have used a 64 GB SSD in a HTPC, and it is doable but almost too small. Most likely you have used a program that is caching files somewhere.
Here is a link to a good SSD guide, scroll down a bit to the optimizations area.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds/0_80
I have used a 64 GB SSD in a HTPC, and it is doable but almost too small. Most likely you have used a program that is caching files somewhere.
Here is a link to a good SSD guide, scroll down a bit to the optimizations area.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds/0_80
Do you have a boatload of RAM? If you do, your pagefile and hibernation file can take a huge chunk.
If that's the case you can shrink your pagefile and/or relocate some/all of it to the 1TB drive. Doing that can have some side effects on performance, and shouldn't be done without doing a little research, but if it's something you're interested in, I can go into more detail.
If you don't use hibernate, then you can disable it, and free about another few gigs of room on your SSD.
Finally, try a Win+R and type in %temp% and open your temp folder and clear out anything in there after a clean boot. (at that point there shouldn't be anything in use there)
Edit: One other thing I forgot to mention... The Windows DriverStore (C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore) can end up with a lot of room wasted, especially if you're the type to update your video drivers once a week. Worse yet if you have an NVidia video card, as their drivers are huge. There is a command line utility called pnputil.exe that can remove said drivers. (Google, or ask for more info here if you think you might need to use it)
And while I'm thinking about it, if you use WMC for Live TV make sure you have your recordings (and Live TV buffer) on your 1TB drive instead of the SSD.
If that's the case you can shrink your pagefile and/or relocate some/all of it to the 1TB drive. Doing that can have some side effects on performance, and shouldn't be done without doing a little research, but if it's something you're interested in, I can go into more detail.
If you don't use hibernate, then you can disable it, and free about another few gigs of room on your SSD.
Finally, try a Win+R and type in %temp% and open your temp folder and clear out anything in there after a clean boot. (at that point there shouldn't be anything in use there)
Edit: One other thing I forgot to mention... The Windows DriverStore (C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore) can end up with a lot of room wasted, especially if you're the type to update your video drivers once a week. Worse yet if you have an NVidia video card, as their drivers are huge. There is a command line utility called pnputil.exe that can remove said drivers. (Google, or ask for more info here if you think you might need to use it)
And while I'm thinking about it, if you use WMC for Live TV make sure you have your recordings (and Live TV buffer) on your 1TB drive instead of the SSD.
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A few recommendations (I use 30 GB SSDs on my HTPCs):
1. Run windows disk cleanup to delete temporary files
2. Download WinDirStat to see what is taking up space
3. Remove your hibernation file if you don't use hibernation
4. I've also heard you can shrink your page file to something like 1 GB, but I've never done this
1. Run windows disk cleanup to delete temporary files
2. Download WinDirStat to see what is taking up space
3. Remove your hibernation file if you don't use hibernation
4. I've also heard you can shrink your page file to something like 1 GB, but I've never done this
You can get rid of the pagefile entirely. Windows will manage just fine without it. Other than desktops that frequently have scores of browser tabs open and have a bunch of memory-hungry office apps idling in the background, the pagefile isn't getting used.
You can get rid of the pagefile entirely. Windows will manage just fine without it. Other than desktops that frequently have scores of browser tabs open and have a bunch of memory-hungry office apps idling in the background, the pagefile isn't getting used.
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Check on how large an area your Windows Restore is setup for. In Windows 8, you can fill up the entire drive with restore files.
Check on how large an area your Windows Restore is setup for. In Windows 8, you can fill up the entire drive with restore files.
That's not entirely correct.
I would never recommend completely disabling the page file for a number of reasons.
Windows is designed to work with a page file, regardless of how much physical memory you have. It is always being used.
Windows starts, but doesn't frequently use, a number of required services. Those services get paged out, freeing up memory of other purposes, including, but not limited to hard drive caching. But generally, it just frees up memory for programs you're actually using.
Also, with the page file disabled, in the event you do run out of physical memory, Windows will crash, and it won't do so gracefully. You hit the memory wall, and you're done.
Keep in mind, there are plenty of home theater related tasks that can chew up memory. WMC Extender sessions being the first thing to come to mind.
That said you can disable the page file. I just wouldn't recommend it. Especially if you have another drive in the system on which you can simply relocate it.
That's not entirely correct.
I would never recommend completely disabling the page file for a number of reasons.
Windows is designed to work with a page file, regardless of how much physical memory you have. It is always being used.
Windows starts, but doesn't frequently use, a number of required services. Those services get paged out, freeing up memory of other purposes, including, but not limited to hard drive caching. But generally, it just frees up memory for programs you're actually using.
Also, with the page file disabled, in the event you do run out of physical memory, Windows will crash, and it won't do so gracefully. You hit the memory wall, and you're done.
Keep in mind, there are plenty of home theater related tasks that can chew up memory. WMC Extender sessions being the first thing to come to mind.
That said you can disable the page file. I just wouldn't recommend it. Especially if you have another drive in the system on which you can simply relocate it.
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I have a partition on my secondary hard drive dedicated for only the page file. Winoows XP machine. My Windows 8 laptop only has a single drive, so that is a no go.
I have a partition on my secondary hard drive dedicated for only the page file. Winoows XP machine. My Windows 8 laptop only has a single drive, so that is a no go.
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Do you use Media Browser? Over time it added a huge number of extra pieces of artwork to it's cache. There were 3 or 4 gigabytes worth of posters and backdrops for movies I didn't even have on the PC anymore.
The exact same is true of virtual memory, which is why Windows starts notifying apps when the commit charge hits 80%. A decade ago I was running networks of XP thin clients. No local storage. No pagefiles. No issues with only 256M of ram. The staff wasn't losing work because their machines were crashing. There was no attack of the missing-pagefile-boogeyman. I'd wager that in the world today, there are actually more Windows installs running without a pagefile than with, since the WE7 products disable it by default.
In my view, HTPCs are kiosks, and UI response time is an even higher priority than with desktops. When a user hits the remote, and there is a paging IO delay waiting on HDD spinup or SSD trim, the system will 'feel' sluggish. That's bad UX.
HTPC memory use is predictable and ram is cheap. The pagefile isn't adding any benefit.
The exact same is true of virtual memory, which is why Windows starts notifying apps when the commit charge hits 80%. A decade ago I was running networks of XP thin clients. No local storage. No pagefiles. No issues with only 256M of ram. The staff wasn't losing work because their machines were crashing. There was no attack of the missing-pagefile-boogeyman. I'd wager that in the world today, there are actually more Windows installs running without a pagefile than with, since the WE7 products disable it by default.
In my view, HTPCs are kiosks, and UI response time is an even higher priority than with desktops. When a user hits the remote, and there is a paging IO delay waiting on HDD spinup or SSD trim, the system will 'feel' sluggish. That's bad UX.
HTPC memory use is predictable and ram is cheap. The pagefile isn't adding any benefit.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the default behavior of Windows is to increase the size of the page file when virtual memory runs out, not to crash. (yes, if you eventually run out of hard drive space, it'll still crash, but you certainly have a lot more headroom with than without the page file)
Again, I'm not saying it can't be done. It absolutely can but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Sure in certain scenarios it will work, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily a good thing. Your assertion that the page file isn't being used unless you have a bunch of browser tabs open or office apps, is patently false. When available, windows will always use the page file. That said, your thin-client example is terrible as your thin-clients are only using enough local resources to render a UI and and communicate with an application server. The application server is the one actually using RAM and CPU cycles to run whatever app the client was displaying, and you better believe that app server had virtual memory enabled.
I agree that HTPC are more of a kiosk than a desktop, but that doesn't change the way that Windows pages out infrequently used services. I'm not sure how your system is setup, but I've never encountered a paging delay on mine after pressing a key on the remote.
I would argue that adding extra ram, just to keep a bunch of infrequently used services in memory isn't adding any benefit either.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the default behavior of Windows is to increase the size of the page file when virtual memory runs out, not to crash. (yes, if you eventually run out of hard drive space, it'll still crash, but you certainly have a lot more headroom with than without the page file)
Again, I'm not saying it can't be done. It absolutely can but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Sure in certain scenarios it will work, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily a good thing. Your assertion that the page file isn't being used unless you have a bunch of browser tabs open or office apps, is patently false. When available, windows will always use the page file. That said, your thin-client example is terrible as your thin-clients are only using enough local resources to render a UI and and communicate with an application server. The application server is the one actually using RAM and CPU cycles to run whatever app the client was displaying, and you better believe that app server had virtual memory enabled.
I agree that HTPC are more of a kiosk than a desktop, but that doesn't change the way that Windows pages out infrequently used services. I'm not sure how your system is setup, but I've never encountered a paging delay on mine after pressing a key on the remote.
I would argue that adding extra ram, just to keep a bunch of infrequently used services in memory isn't adding any benefit either.
Your particular XP thin client install may have just been a diskless XP install, but "back then" I was setting up Citrix on NT4 Terminal Servers, so Citrix and Microsoft were most certainly working together at the time. (Terminal Server was based on technology licensed from Citrix)
Regardless, without knowing a great deal more about the OP's system I certainly wouldn't blindly recommend disabling the page file.
Your particular XP thin client install may have just been a diskless XP install, but "back then" I was setting up Citrix on NT4 Terminal Servers, so Citrix and Microsoft were most certainly working together at the time. (Terminal Server was based on technology licensed from Citrix)
Regardless, without knowing a great deal more about the OP's system I certainly wouldn't blindly recommend disabling the page file.
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