I lose about 1 gb of space a day

After I have installed all of my programs and games, which took up a lot of space.... I have been losing about 1 gb of space a day. And even though I have like 380 gb left, I would like to know why this is happening. I browse the web, but I know that there is no way that I accumulate that much space lost in one day. Basically the only two things I have been doing for the last week on this laptop is browse the web, and play The Witcher 2. I delete all of the excess saves in TW2 and I run CC Cleaner everyday. Still nothing, any help?

 

Maybe System Restore creating a ton of restore points?

 

What is that, and how would I do something about it?

 

Almost certainly shadow copies in system restore. To check, download and run WinDirStat.

You can delete old restore points or switch off sysrest.to get the space back.

 

Would that have to do with my computer (on every like 5th or so reboot) it says that I need to restart because my drivers were not installed correctly? Or is that a separate issue. It isn't ever a problem because I just reboot and it is fine.

Edit: Just downloaded it, how do I delete this exactly without screwing something up?

 

Probably a separate issue. Use this: WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics to find out now much and where your space is dissappearing.

 

I just downloaded it, check my edit above.

 

Run WinDirStat. It just reports on space usage. There's a toggle (F8 or Options) that will show unrecognisable space used. If there's a large chunk like this, in yellow I think, that's your problem.

I don't have a Windows machine in front of me so I can't check the exact terms.

 

Thought that I would post a screeny before I try to mess with stuff. Any suggestions based on this?

http://i930.photobucket.com/albums/ad143/Vapkez/Windirstat.jpg

 

Before spending more time on a test like that, which may give you more information than you might need, check out your System Restore settings:
Start Menu > right click on Computer and select properties > System Protection > Highlight C:\ drive > click Configure

There, you'll then be able to see the max % of total space that can be used for restore points. I believe the default setting is like 15%, which can be a lot, depending on how big your HDD is. You'll also be able to see how much is currently in use.

 

It is at 2% which is 10gb, and it has used 9.75. Thanks that is probably where it has been going. Do you think I should keep it there or move it down to 1%?

 

Disable hibernate and pagefile.

Disabling hibernate and pagefile will save you quite a bit of space. A few gigs at the very least.

Code:

powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Just replace off with on should you ever want to turn it back on.

And if you want to disable pagefile also, it's in your virtual memory settings. Just uncheck 'Automatically manage paging file' and then select 'No paging file' down below.

 

That could be it, then, if you just installed your OS and it's been consuming 1GB/day. Now that it's at its 2% maximum, it will start deleting old restore points to make room for new ones, but should no longer eat up additional space. If you find that space is still being consumed, then it's a different problem.

That's good info. I don't think the OP's concern was with freeing up space, but finding out why space was "disappearing" despite him adding no additional programs/files.

 

Ohhh. My bad. Guess I misread. heh

I, personally, have system restore disabled completely. I have a pretty efficient backup system making it unnecessary. But if you need system restore should anything ever go wrong, you are probably okay to use it and it shouldn't eat up any more space as anseio pointed out.

 

Yeah thanks for these points and the help. Ill post back if the problem persists. I just didn't want the issue to continue. I am sure that down the road, I will need to try and make space . So I will keep that in mind.

 

I have a SSD/HDD setup and need to use system restore. It's a small write to my SSD to use system restore, rather than a 30GB write to restore from my system image backups.

Other than that, I don't use hibernation or page file. Got the ram and sleep is really good on my lappy.

 

Ah yeah, that's understandable. Maybe I should elaborate on my "efficient" backup system. It's really only efficient in my definition of the word haha. If I ever had something go terribly wrong and I was unable to fix without a restore of some sort, my method to go about fixing that is to simply reformat my ssd and then do a clean install of all of my programs/games/whatever that I have backed up on my hdd. I only have the installations backed up, not any data.

My reasoning for doing it this way is really for my own ocd-tendency purposes. One of my favorite things to do is reformat and start from scratch with everything. Nothing better than that new install smell

So, I supposed that kind of defeats the idea of system restore anyway so my point is pretty much moot in this context haha

 

In your case, I would recommend doing your clean install and then installing every program that's a necessity, then adjusting all of your Windows settings to the way you like. Once you've done that, then go into Backup & Restore and Create a System Image to another HDD. It will make a folder called "WindowsImageBackup", which you'll need to rename so that it won't be written over by subsequent system images. Then, if you ever need to "start over", you can just restore from that perfect clean-install system image, which is MUCH more efficient than the time it takes to completely start over to acheive the same end result.

I, personally, have a system image stored away of my perfect OS installation, with key settings and programs installed. I, also do regular backups to another system image for fixing simple emergencies. At no point, will I have to spend 8 hours installing/customizing, when I can restore from my perfect image in about 45min.

 

Okay, okay. So my method is less-than perfect xD

I'll have to do that when I do my next clean install which will be soon since I'm switching one of my laptop's hard drives out. I'm trying to figure out why I haven't done that in the past. Just never occurred to me I suppose. Either way, thanks. I appreciate the advice

 

You're very welcome. Something I forgot to mention. Rather than backing up your data, just make the system image (so long as it contains the drive letters that your data is on. The System Images can be mounted as Virtual Hard Drives via Disk Management and are fully explorable. ALL of your data will be there.

 

Will definitely keep that in mind. Although, I'm not too keen on backing up data

 

I have an external hard drive, should I put a system image on that or should I just back it up on it?

 

I prefer a system image in liu of a backup, so.... yes.