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Just how much deleted stuff is left behind?

4K views 24 replies 6 participants last post by  ExDilbert 
#1 ·
I think most people know that when you delete things they are not truly gone and may be recovered. But just how much 'deleted' stuff is occupying disk space?

Last night I ran a disk wiper on my partition. At the beginning I had 111 gb available of 255.

Now I have 155 available. That's a staggering 44 gb used up on deleted items after 3 years use.

Is that normal?
 
#2 ·
Depends on what that 44gb consisted of.

If, for instance, it was video stuff, sure, that could get eaten up very quickly and reclaimed a lot of space when deleted.

Cameron
 
#3 ·
Windows may have been keeping track of the deleted stuff for restoring old versions, etc. The disk wiper probably cleaned out some of the Windows bookkeeping entries and some files that weren't needed, like unused hibernate files and other crud that Windows leaves on disk.

A lot of this can be done with the Disk Cleanup utility supplied with Windows. It can get rid of old Windows installations and Windows Update files. They can take many GB of space.
 
#7 ·
A major space waster is Windows upgrade. It leaves the old version of Windows on the disk in a directory called Windows.old. In some cases, that can double the size of even a "clean" Windows install. The only real clean Windows install is a disk wipe followed by a bare disk install. Unfortunately, MS installation routines don't allow that with upgrade keys. Fortunately, the windows.old folder can be removed with Disk Cleanup.

Another reason for bloated Windows folders is the WinSxS subfolder. It stores multiple versions of DLL files for compatibility with different versions of programs. Over time it can take up a huge amount of space. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to clean it out apart from starting with a clean Windows install.
 
#8 ·
Yep, I discovered that too.

I noticed that AVG suggested a high potential for recovery on the system restore points and then I saw a high figure on not only the old system but t also the newer one if one had gone back.

I don't suppose it matters too much with today's 500gb and 1TB hard drives, but what about much smaller SSDs?

I mean, using my example of a good clear out and then 10 days later finding another 8gb needlessly occupied, that could be hugely significant on a smaller SSD, especially a 16 or 32. Or does it maybe scale down, for want of a better expression?
 
#12 ·
I'm not sure I'd want to be that 'active' though. Or can it be done that a new point created automatically deletes earlier ones?
I ran Win7 Pro on a 60GB SSD drive for 2-3 years...used drive space grew to about 40-50GB after awhile and needed occasional cleanup. The drive didn't last long either.....
Because of the regular clean-up? Does that deteriorate a drive at a faster rate than 'normal' use?
 
#10 ·
I ran Win7 Pro on a 60GB SSD drive for 2-3 years. Larger programs had to be installed on a hard drive. My Documents was moved to a hard drive as well. Hibernation and paging were turned off. Even with that, used drive space grew to about 40-50GB after awhile and needed occasional cleanup. The drive didn't last long either. I had three 60GB SSD drives fail soon after the 3 year warranty expired. They worked well for an HTPC which basically just played video but I soon realized the desktop needed something larger.

I'd say running Windows on a 32GB drive would be difficult and 16GB near impossible. It could be done but the O/S would need to be trimmed of a lot of features and updates would need to be limited.
 
#15 ·
Because of the regular clean-up? Does that deteriorate a drive at a faster rate than 'normal' use?
Regular cleanup, if done too often, could contribute to SSD failure but so could letting the disk fill up. SSD drives have limited writes. That has increased in recent years but still exists. Windows is a disk based OS. That means it reads from and writes to disk a lot. Smaller disk size will contribute to disk wear and failure. That's because reserved sectors for wear leveling are based on a percentage of total disk size. Smaller disks have fewer reserved sectors so they will be exhausted faster. SSDs tend to fail suddenly, once the reserved wear leveling sectors are exhausted, even if the drive could be used at reduced capacity.

Operations such as paging will contribute to SSD wear, as will anything that causes high numbers of disk writes. That means that having adequate RAM will help reduce disk writes and extend the life of an SSD drive. In addition, not using the entire disk can make an SSD last longer. Let's say a new, unformatted 120GB drive is formatted with a single 100GB partition. Those 20GB of never used sectors will be added to the wear leveling pool, greatly extending the life of the SSD.

The bottom line is to get a big SSD and don't use all of it. In addition, get lots of RAM to reduce paging and turn off, when possible, features that cause unnecessary disk writes. Things like disk optimizers that produce a lot of unnecessary disk writes are a very bad idea since they are typically not designed for SSDs. Having said that, modern SSDs are a lot better than the ones I had fail. They should typically outlast a similar mechanical drive. However, excessive disk writes due to bad software or improper system configuration could cause premature failure.
 
#17 ·
Okay, so I had a look around yesterday and I found where to turn on/off restore points and limit the space.
On the laptop I'm transitioning from it was set at 10%, or 50gb. So that's why it accumulated so much to recover?

On my new one it's set at 1% which is 10gb.

Someone said earlier that when a new restore point is created, windows will delete the first one to make room for it. Always or just when there's no room to add one without taking one away?

This probably sounds a daft question and I'm not sure how to phrase it but doesn't this mean excessive activity (like too much clean-up mentioned in the previous post) in that 1% of the disc? This is a HDD not a SSD.

Anyway, this probably takes care of one of the two reasons I liked AVG Tune-up so much.

The other feature was sending all the unnecessary bits to sleep - not just on start up.

Now I've no doubt that there are other ways of doing this but if you're not technically minded, as I am not, it's not always easy to know what's what. 99% of the processes listed in Task Manager mean zilch to me. The AVG feature makes it easy to do it for many or a few and they kick in when you need them and go back to sleep when you don't.

That seems quite handy, even more so with W10 on my new laptop as there seems to be much more that I am never likely to use...and I bet W10 wouldn't like me turning them off :wink even if I knew how. Is there one place where one can do it so simply?

It's also handy having the features all in one place.
 
#19 ·
Someone said earlier that when a new restore point is created, windows will delete the first one to make room for it. Always or just when there's no room to add one without taking one away?

This probably sounds a daft question and I'm not sure how to phrase it but doesn't this mean excessive activity (like too much clean-up mentioned in the previous post) in that 1% of the disc? This is a HDD not a SSD.
That was me. :)

Windows doesn't reserve a physical spot for the restore points, they can be anywhere on the drive. You just set a limit on how much space they will take. Windows will only delete the oldest restore point when the total space exceeds the limit (eg. 10 GB.) Windows basically creates a new restore point when it runs Windows Update or a new program is installed. I believe it also creates a new restore point once a week.

You don't have to worry about excessive activity, ExDilbert's explanation was about SSDs.
 
#18 ·
Most of the old interfaces are still available on Win10. They're just hidden under a new coat of lipstick. Win10 Creators Update goes even further. For example, Control Panel still exists but less visible. Win10 has some functionality that was previously only available with utilities or more deeply hidden administrators interfaces. Task manager is one example of that. Utilities provided by companies like AVG are just an aggregation of functions provided elsewhere in Windows. Win10 is a real mixed bag. Some stuff is hidden under the new interface but other stuff is easier to access once you know where to find it.
 
#21 ·
...Win10 is a real mixed bag. Some stuff is hidden under the new interface but other stuff is easier to access once you know where to find it.
And when you know what it's called.
I had a bit of an experiment on W8.1 and 10 a couple of years ago and I was dismayed to find that not only were some features named differently to W7, the route to them was also different :frown

And thanks DrDave.

One last question (for now :laugh)...all those Registry errors that things like Glary and AVG "clean up" or "repair"...I see lots of recommendations not to use utilities like them as they "don't do anything useful and might even be dangerous."

So what are these "errors" then?
 
#20 ·
Restore points should not be an issue with SSDs unless the drive is very small or restore points consume a large percentage of the disk. Under normal use, their impact on total disk writes should be minimal. Things like excessive paging due to insufficient RAM or constant video buffering, such as with live TV PVR use, would be more of an issue. Even with such excesses, modern SSDs would take some time to be affected.
 
#22 ·
If you enjoy tinkering and fiddling then W10 is a wonderful place for that activity. I have done my share of this and used some of the tools you mentioned.

Registry errors are usually broken links and besides taking up space will have zero effect on the performance of your PC. They have have helped older slow systems but with I5 or faster processors and SDD's this is no longer a factor.

Restore points are handy, a time saver, but not essential. You should monitor the space used and determine if 1% is sufficient and that may only be enough for 2 restore points. The need to go back more than 2 restore points is very small unless you install a lot of software on a regular basis. OTOH is there is lots of unused disk space then having it at 10% gives some added protection.
 
#23 ·
Restore points only protect the operating system. They do little or nothing for personal files. They also do nothing in the case of disk failure or theft. Daily disk image backups to a server, second PC or second disk are more useful than restore points. File history is another useful feature that can protect personal files by backing them up to a second disk. I've had very little use for restore points over the years. The main times were when Windows wouldn't boot due to a failed or bad update.
 
#25 ·
I can't say I have a lot of value on my personal PC but there is enough to make it worthwhile. Restoring the O/S quickly in the event of disk failure makes it worth the effort, for the rare times that it happens. Then there are pictures, digital music (it took a lot of time and effort to rip my CDs) and records of things like serial numbers for software and receipts for warranties. Their loss would not be a major catastrophe but a major inconvenience and somewhat costly.
 
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