Mystery of Chrome & disappearing disk space

peter999

Does anyone know about mystery of Google Chrome & disappearing disk space?


I have an old computer with small 22GB hard drive partition & little free space.

I start with 400+MB free space on C: drive


Over a period of weeks my free space on C: drive will gradually reduce/disappear.

If I clear browser cache I recover some disk space (but not all) which gives temporary respite in increasing free disk space on C: drive.

This cycle will continue over weeks, reducing disk space, clearing cache, but the basic amount of free space is steadily reducing.


Until eventually clearing cache doesn't release much worthwhile space.
I'm down to 10-20 MB free space on C:, which causes problems in internet browsing as this is rapidly used up.


I don't do anything really with this Pc other than browsing internet with Chrome.

I'm pretty certain problem is to do with Chrome & internet browsing, as occasionally a massive amount of free space 300-400MB will magically reappear & be freed.

(once I actually caught it, I closed Chrome windows/tabs & saw free space on C: massively increasing before my eyes in real time)

I don't know what triggers the release of the free space !

I cannot find where this disk space is being used.

I've tried looking in:
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

but size of this directory is predictable/steady & does not reflect 400MB disappearing.

I cannot find how to trigger the release of the free space, it seems to be released randomly, which is a pain.

Any ideas what's going on ?
.

closed

some possible solutions

disable or limit the size of cacheing, don't use chrome, install ccleaner and wipe out the cache amongst other things by setting it to run at boot, use wiztree to identify what's using 22GB of space and clean the system up - turn system restore off and on, disable updaters, rejig partition sizes, buy a bigger hd, move cache/temp directories elsewhere if there is space

peter999

closed wrote: »

some possible solutions

disable or limit the size of cacheing, don't use chrome, install ccleaner and wipe out the cache amongst other things by setting it to run at boot, use wiztree to identify what's using 22GB of space and clean the system up, rejig partition sizes, buy a bigger hd

I'm regularly deleting the Google Cache, but it does not release the 300-400 MB used somewhere.

I can't find where it is being used to explain what's going on.


Here are 2 snapshots:

10/8/13
Free space on C: 446MB ==> after clearing Chrome cache

C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome
Used 482MB, 1145 files, 256 folders


13/9/13
Free space on C: 28.3MB

C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome
Used 556MB, 939 files, 287 folders

Free space on C: 38.6MB ==> after clearing Chrome cache

C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome
Used 554MB, 942 files, 287 folders

closed

http://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-finds-the-files-and-folders-using-the-most-disk-space-on-your-hard-drive/

http://www.voidtools.com/

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/slim

Jivesinger

It might not be Chrome.

I see similar patterns and I don't have Chrome, but I do have a hard disk which is too full.

In my case I think it's either
a anti-virus signatures being updated or
b Windows managing System Restore points.

I think the freeing-up thing happens when System restore points are being deleted - I think when disk space drops below a certain level, Windows will free this up; but the downside is you've just lost a (potentially useful) restore point.

Also, is your Page file size fixed? If not, then that could be varying.

It looks like you have XP?

In my experience with XP and a full disk, fragmentation is a big problem, and you see better performance by:

1. setting a fixed size pagefile and using Pagedefrag from Sysinternals to defragment it. You'll need to free up some free space (over twice the size of the pagefile) to do this though.
   http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.
   
   Otherwise, the pagefile is forever shrinking and growing, which means it gets horribly fragmented and very slow whenever Windows needs to use it.
   
2. defragmenting the free space often, as files are created and deleted. My experience with XP and a full disk was horrible performance due to fragmentation. Later versions of windows are better because they defragment themselves, and often manual defragmentation isn't worth it, but in this situation (XP + Full disk), it definitely is.

kwikbreaks

This or similar should give you an idea where your space is being used. Probably your best solution would be to replace the hard drive.

paddyrg

400MB isn't a lot of space these days, it's half a CD. The last 400MB is even smaller as there may be system processes trying to use it, and it isn't enough to defrag in. There's a load of other stuff on that computer, time to get rid until you have a couple of GB free at least, then start defragging, and deleting more. New hard drive is cheap and easy solution as above.

peter999

About a week ago I freed 246MB space on C: drive by moving some large files to another drive.
(The week before that I reduced size of page file on C: by 144MB. That's 390MB freed in 2 weeks.)

After 6 days most of that free space had disappeared, I was down to 29MB after clearing Chrome Cache.

BUT I can't work out where all this free space is going, as I don't download anything, just use Pc for internet browsing & emails.


As I said before, occasionally a massive amount of free space, maybe 400MB, will magically reappear, triggered by what I don't know. This happened once when I was browsing with Chrome, 400MB reappeared.

I'm convinced it's linked to Chrome, but I can't where it's using all this space.

The main location for Chrome is:
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Google


The size of this Chrome directory/sub-directories is reasonably stable at 440-550MB over past 3 months after clearing Cache

So that doesn't account for 100's of MB disappearing.
I must have freed ~500MB over past 3 months, most of which has disappeared somewhere.

It's an old Pc using XP, so I'm used to managing it carefully.

peter999

Does Chrome have a Paging File separate from Cache ?

GunJack

no, the pagefile is a windows function. closed has given an initial course of action in post #2

closed

use the tools already mentioned to find out