SSD not large enough?

cobramonkey

cobramonkey

2[H]4U
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Apr 16, 2007
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So a few months ago, I purchased http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-233-122&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo for my OS drive, Win 7 64 bit. Initially it was fine, with about 8 gigs free. I thought that would be enough for Windows updates. Well, in between updates and a few program files duplicating themselves, its filling up. I have gone through and cleaned up as much as I can but can't seem to get more than 4 gigs free, which is causing very slow boots. Also, I am well aware I may have not done default locations well. How I initially did the set up was just change the default Windows locations for pics, docs, that stuff. Couldn't figure out how to change default installation locations. So I just rely on changing C:/ to D:/ Any suggestions on how to make this work, or is that really just not enough space?
 
A couple of suggestions:

1) Try to use CCcleaner to wipe out all your temp and update install files. It is free. You can google it.
2) Pagefile: Look into your Drive properties and see if you have your pagefile setup manually. Right click on My computer on the start menu. Choose property/Advanced Systems Setting/Advanced/Perfomance settings/Advanced. Under virtual memory click change. Uncheck the "Automatically manage" and set a custom size of 1GB.
3) Disable system restore: Still in the Advanced Systems Setting menu under System Protection. Click on drive C and then configure. Try and choose only restore previous versions of the files. I personally turn mine off but it may be risky.
 
Awesome, I will try that stuff when I get home. So 32GB drive should be large enough if I manage data properly?
 
I think that's just too small a drive to be really useful. You can use WinDirStat to find out what the big space hogs are and see if you can delete or move some things. You can turn off hibernation and hybrid sleep in the power options to get rid of the hiberfil.sys (which is the same size as your RAM), and shrink the pagefile, if you haven't already. You can also use symbolic links to move some files/folders to a mechanical drive.
 
1. Get more RAM and disable the page file.
2. Disable the hibernation file (CMD, "powercfg -h off")
3. Disable system restore or whatever it's called these days.
 
So 32GB drive should be large enough if I manage data properly?
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Not really, but wadda gonna do? :)

1. Get more RAM and disable the page file.
2. Disable the hibernation file (CMD, "powercfg -h off")
3. Disable system restore or whatever it's called these days.
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PERFECT!
 
I can't speak for everyone as to how much space is enough, but with my page file disabled, hibernation disabled, system restore disabled, among disabling useless Windows features such as IE, games, Media Player, and other stuff I only use 17 GB (1000s, not 1024s). All I really have installed that is big is Photoshop CS4 and Office 2K7. Anything else I have installed is negligible. I also have a 64 GB SSD. I only disable such things to minimize wear, not save space.
 
ramicio said:
1. Get more RAM and disable the page file.
2. Disable the hibernation file (CMD, "powercfg -h off")
3. Disable system restore or whatever it's called these days.
Click to expand...

Doing this alone with a 40 GB SSD is enough to fit Windows 7, updates, Office, 3 Adobe apps, and all small apps.
 
ramicio said:
I can't speak for everyone as to how much space is enough, but with my page file disabled, hibernation disabled, system restore disabled, among disabling useless Windows features such as IE, games, Media Player, and other stuff I only use 17 GB (1000s, not 1024s). All I really have installed that is big is Photoshop CS4 and Office 2K7. Anything else I have installed is negligible. I also have a 64 GB SSD. I only disable such things to minimize wear, not save space.
Click to expand...

You probably don't have anything installed on hard drives either, because everything installed makes the winsxs folder grow.
 
By "OS drive" do you mean that you are not installing any programs in "program files"? Are you only using the drive for your OS? If so, 32 GB should be more than enough. My win7 x64 install takes up only 4.13 GB and that includes all versions of dotnet, full directx, IE8, aero themese, and some additional language support as well. This is a fresh install using a Windows Embedded Standard 7 install disk. Even if you don't use Windows Embedded you can get a smaller install size with tools that can be found at msfn.org. I am actually thinking about doing a reinstall to get the size smaller. Although 4.13 GB is about the same size as my Windows XP x64 installation. The problem is that if you start installing and uninstalling stuff a lot or using Windows Update the Windows Side by Side system can quickly bloat to many more GB because it just saves every version of everything it can find in case you may need it at some point in the future. Nowadays Microsoft pretty much relies on you having a massive multi TB hard drive. They consider hard drive space to be essentially infinite. It's not a constraint they pay attention to at all anymore.

Note that explorer itself will probably not give you an accurate report on the size of your windows directories because windows 7 makes extensive use of "hardlinks" which are additional pointers to the same file. That is, what looks like a file may or may not actually be just an additional reference to a file that occurs elsewhere in Windows. Usually the system32 directory and the winsxs directory both have references to the same physical file using up x bytes on your hard drive. Explorer will count these twice. If you right click on the windows directory and select properties I don't think it counts the hardlinks though. So you can use that method to figure out how much space win7 is actually taking up. Or you can use the following tools which will give you correct folder sizes and tell you which files are hardlinks, respectively. The folder size tool is command line and in German. Enter "ctts c:\" or "ctts c:\windows\" at the command prompt. It should give you the correct size (without the hardlinks) at the bottom under "total".

http://www.heise.de/software/download/ddwl50272

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html
 
I also have a 64 GB SSD.
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The OP is working with 1/2 of that space.

I wouldn't fill an SSD any more than 85% of it's space which means 28GB of usable space on a 32GB SSD.

This leaves room (especially for the little drives) to breathe.

I have no idea how you guys get a w7 64bit install on 4.5GB.

Mine's @ 30GB with programs.
 
I just don't see the point of a 32GB drive that only has the OS on it. If you aren't going to use the SSD for the programs you commonly use, then you aren't getting nearly the benefit from it that you could be. Save your money and get a drive with enough space for some programs as well.
 
I don't know what posts are directed at mine, but anything I install is installed on my SSD. I call it my "OS drive" because everything you install and use is than an operating system. Just break down the meanings of the words. My computer is a system that operates. I could get away with a 32 GB one and I would rather have a 32 GB SSD than a 64 GB SSD. I don't need "breathing room." Linking to files is not inaccurate. It's a smart way to not need multiple copies of the same thing. Why that means you have falsely reported space is just another grasp for an argument filled with air. I really don't see how it's possible to fit an install into 4.5 GB. I don't recall anyone here claiming that, either. Maybe the lowest version of 7.

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Forceman said:
I just don't see the point of a 32GB drive that only has the OS on it. If you aren't going to use the SSD for the programs you commonly use, then you aren't getting nearly the benefit from it that you could be. Save your money and get a drive with enough space for some programs as well.
Click to expand...

Point well taken but the drive has already been purchased and in use.

These 32GB drives were made for a non-MS OS or somebody who knew what they were doing with a MS OS.

Obviously the marketing people knew that "SSD + cheap price" would bring those that aren't familiar with anything other than installing a MS OS and forgetting about it.

MS recommends 20GB of space for a w7 64bit install and while it doesn't actually take that much space when installed, it doesn't leave much wriggle room when it gets going IF you don't know what to disable.

But in this case you might as well preach to someone who hasn't bought a 32GB drive. :)
 
Small SSDs are pointless for notebooks where there is no space for a hard drive in addition to the SSD. I also wouldn't even take seriously a laptop to hold my important data, especially with an SSD. I would rather have my data on my own "cloud" on my own home network.
 
Even if all that is on an SSD is the OS and nothing else there is a dramatic benefit when it comes to heavy multitasking. Everything we do, even loading a web browser that is entirely installed on a RAMdisk relies on many functions from the operating system.

Go onto any regular pc that has a standard single hard drive installed and copy some large files to tax the disk, then try and do anything else even small tasks and see the big performance delay. Most of us have become used to modern speed and we've forgotten.

As for 32GB if that's what ya got, you can work with it. I had a 32GB for a year when they first came out and if you do all the right things it's enough for win7x64, a handful of large apps, and a hundred small apps.

People will tell you not to do this, but if you download vlite and remove only the large components like, media center, wmplayer, tablet pc, natural language, speech support, a couple other things I can't recall off head, but basically remove those "big" things and do as the others guys said disable restore, hibernate, & pagefile if you have enough RAM or at least shrink it, it will get you down to about a 4.5GB Win7x64 install that is perfectly functional with 95% of the most used bells & whistles. You can use other programs to get it down even further, I had a couple test runs done around the 2.5+/-GB mark, installed. But for only a 1.5GB gain, it's not worth it as much is lost.

There's a lot of other random junk that Windows includes with their software, SO much of it that most of us do not use.
 
You are making references to PCs most likely having barely any RAM and relying on that disk for its page file. OF COURSE taxing the drive on a system like that is going to slow everything down to a screeching halt.
 
ramicio said:
You are making references to PCs most likely having barely any RAM and relying on that disk for its page file. OF COURSE taxing the drive on a system like that is going to slow everything down to a screeching halt.
Click to expand...

Incorrect. I was actually referencing a core i3 530 running at 4.3GHz with 8GB of ram. That was one of my older systems and guess what, it now has a single Modern Fast hard drive in it, and you CANNOT multi-task "smoothly" when the DISK is taxed. Plain and simple. Put an SSD in it and guess what? It multi-tasks like a fucking dream.
 
Are you understanding that multitasking is most dependent on CPU and RAM, not hard drive performance? What you're referring to is reading and writing, not running programs. Even so, 8 GB is not very modern, and you are still assuming a page file. I don't care if you had your OS installed on something as slow as a floppy drive. Just doing away with a page file is just a huge performance upgrade.
 
Everything you do relies on the disk. It doesn't matter if you have 125 CPU cores. If everything you are doing is on a SINGLE disk you are going to be DISK bottle-necked when you try and Multi-task. Not only is it the plain truth, it's just common sense. Period. If you don't get that I'm not going to explain it any further.
 
As a program is loading it loads into memory. Once loaded it's in memory. There is no hard drive lag then. It seems you don't understand the common sense of computing. The lag you are talking about is because Windows prefers virtual memory over actual RAM. Get a slow old hard disk, let's say 40 GB, put Win 7 on it, get 12 GB of RAM, disable the page file, load up a bunch of programs, then do some disk-intensive stuff like file transfers. Nothing will happen. Re-enable the page file, do the same thing, and you have a slow POS.
 
ramicio said:
Once loaded it's in memory. There is no hard drive lag then
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Sure for office apps and minor programs, and the key word there is "once". Those also aren't considered Heavy Multi-tasking Apps. If you want to load your little fisher price programs all at once why not just get enough ram and run a pentium 2 on a 20GB 4200rpm drive and call it day. Essentially that would you make you happy right? With your words just turn off the pagefile and you'd be good to go.

For reference I don't use pagefiles.
 
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As a program is loading it loads into memory. Once loaded it's in memory. There is no hard drive lag then.
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'Tis true but I'll never have enough memory to load my programs and I wouldn't want it to anyway.

Sorry, mechanical HDs were bottle necks in the past but most SSDs have made it a moot point.

It doesn't matter what configuration you have, unless it's a total RAM drive, an SSD will improve performance unless all you do is surf the net.
 
So by your definition having a bunch of stuff open that uses general processing power is not multi-tasking? What you are talking about...only the disk usage aspect of those programs will be affected, not the whole system in general. If it truly is affected, you are doing something wrong or lying about having a page file where this disk activity is going on.
 
Somebody going to come in here and set this guy straight before I bite his head off.

I'm done here. How do I always attract the trolls?
 
ramicio said:
I don't know what posts are directed at mine, but anything I install is installed on my SSD. I call it my "OS drive" because everything you install and use is than an operating system.
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I refer to my car and my house as "operating systems" too because they are systems and they operate. I also like to be addressed as "operating system". After all that is what I am. By your definition I am trying to think of anything that could not be referred to as an operating system. Maybe an electron?
 
Grasping at air, are we? Arguing semantics does nothing to help your argument...whatever it even is. Installed programs comprise of your operating system, period.
 
rive22 said:
Somebody going to come in here and set this guy straight before I bite his head off.
Click to expand...
He's probably gonna taste really bad and no matter how much Bud ya drink, the taste will never come outta your mouth. :D

Here, smoke this and we'll think about it! :)
 
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