SSD help

Terry98

I am thinking of buying a Samsung 2.5-Inch 120 GB 850 EVO and fitting it to a Dell Vostro 430 desktop running Win7.

From what I have read it may be best to do a clean install of Win 7 on the SSD and then reinstall all my other programs onto the SSD.

It appears my current c\Windows file has 26gb and my Prog files have about 5gb.

My current c drive also contains 30gb of user files which I will transfer separately to my current d drive.

There is about 90gb used on my current c drive which I cannot account for (my c drive is showing 311gb free of 463gb)

Can anyone please help on the missing 94gb and tell me if any of my other assumptions are right or wrong.

Does Windows automatically put User Files on the OS hard drive?

Cycrow

that 90GB could be from hidden directories, ProgramData is usually hidden, and can sometimes contain quite abit of data.

Theres also tmp files as well as the windows swap file, which you wont see either. If you have a large amount of memory, you could set this to something smaller, as you would be less likely to need it (never disable it completely however)


When you install windows, the user directory will be placed on the same drive as the rest of windows.

however, you can simply move the folders elsewhere once its installed, thats what i usually do with Documents

Le_Kirk

Could it be Recovery Files?

Shrimply

Doesn't exactly answer your question but I've just discovered

http://www.mindgems.com/products/Folder-Size/Folder-Size.html

It's really good for seeing exactly what is where space wise. For me a lot of missing space (~22GB) was in System Volume Information which windows won't display a size for.

My windows folder is still 44GB's though which seems excessive

Terry98

Thanks for the replies. The Folder Size prog looks good......I will download it and see what it comes up with.

I need to find out what the 90gb is before I buy the 120gb ssd otherwise it will have to be 250gb which is about £30 more!

enfield_freddy

terry , its like the saying , always buy a fridge- freezer larger than you need , as it soon fills up!


I have a web machine here with a basic win 7 (32 bit) running on an old 30g ssd !!!


4g of memory and its ok ,


when you do a clean install windows will set itself up and be ok


just a thought , as 7 has been in use for a while , on disk properties , disk cleanup , there is a second tab , after you have started "clean up system files" , this is where all the junk from a few yrs of updates are , run that , it might take an hour , but you might be surprised at the space gained

Terry98

I ran the Folder Size prog but it only showed the folders and sizes that I already knew.

Disk cleanup found about 3gb . I also ran CHKDSK.

It still leaves over 80gb unaccounted for which must be hidden data or recovery files as advised above.

enfield_freddy

system restore , delete all but latest , then sys file cleanup again


"if you are ambitious do some wildcard searches , stray MP4 , Avi etc


*.mp4
*.avi


also look for *.tmp and *.bac (or is it bak?)


I think sys restore points one will help

Shrimply

Terry98 wrote: »

I ran the Folder Size prog but it only showed the folders and sizes that I already knew.

Disk cleanup found about 3gb . I also ran CHKDSK.

It still leaves over 80gb unaccounted for which must be hidden data or recovery files as advised above.

Make sure all the files are visible

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/show-hidden-files-in-windows-7/

And run it with administrator privileges.

Pretty sure it can, and will account for everything. It's really good for finding programs that are hogging loads of space or really large files.

enfield_freddy

terry , can ask a simple question


how large is the hard drive (stated size in bios or description) , how large are all your files , and what spare space is windows saying you have

Double_V

I have Samsung EVO 256GB SSD which contains my Windows 7 (64bit) and all my programs/softwares.
Then I have 2TB second drive as storage.

Best thing is to clean install Windows onto your new SSD.
And then use the old drive as secondary and format it all. All missing data will come back.
Make sure to back up any important data onto an external driver on burn on DVDs.