Got Small SSD As A System Drive For Windows 8? Here Are Some Tips To Free Up Some Disk Space For Your SSD!

Samsung SSD 830 Series 128Gb 2,5″ SATA (Photo credit: Tolbxela)

If you got a small SSD as the system drive, you know how annoying it’s to see it’s being filled up quickly right?  Nonetheless, there isn’t anything you can do about it to stop Windows from eating up SSD space, especially if you’re using Windows 7 and 8.  Still, there are several things that can keep your SSD system drive sane by doing few things as followed…

Disclaimer:  I’m not going to be responsible for your actions in case your computer caught on fire or data were smashed into the oblivion.  You have been warned, and so only trying these tips out if you’re knowledgable (and able to own up to your mistakes).

1. Use CCleaner (only download on its official website or reputable websites to avoid fake CCleaner software which could be a malware or virus) — to clean up the cache, temporary files, and other unnecessary cluttered data.  Furthermore, you can also use CCleaner to clear up erroneous registries.  This software alone is able to help you free up a lot of space in your system drive (i.e., C:\)
2. Use Windows’s built-in Free Up Disk Space utility.  This way if CCleaner missed anything this Windows utility will help clean out the rest.  Nonetheless, I don’t think CCleaner will miss anything unless you had specified specifics data not to be cleaned by CCleaner.  So, this step is rather redundant if you ask me.  To access Windows 8′s built-in Free Up Disk Space utility, you gotta do this:
   1. Accessing the Charm bar on the rightmost side of the monitor as you’re facing it
   2. Click on search icon to access the search box
   3. Type in the search box with Free Up Disk Space
   4. Select Settings link underneath the search box
   5. Click on Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files link/icon on the left panel
   6. Select C: drive
   7. Follow the self explanatory steps afterward.
3. You can also save many many Gigabytes of disk space if you turn off hibernation for Windows 7 and 8.  If I’m not wrong, Windows 7 and 8 usually reserve the same amount of hard disk space to RAM size for hiberfil.sys if you had disabled pagefile feature.  Otherwise, Windows 7 and 8 usually assign some disk space to pagefile.sys and a lot of disk space to hiberfil.sys — adding these two files together would equate the RAM size.  So, let say if your system has installed 8 GB of RAM, then it’s agreeable that Windows 7 and 8 have also reserve around 8 GB of disk space to be used for hibernation through the file known as hiberfil.sys (i.e., if pagefile.sys isn’t existed).  The best way to disable hibernation and recover this 8 GB or how many GB worth of disk space that might be, you have to do this:
   1. Accessing the Charm bar on the rightmost side of the monitor as you’re facing it
   2. Click on the search icon to access the search box
   3. Type in the search box with cmd
   4. Right click on the Command Prompt icon/link
   5. Look at the bottom Charm bar and click on Run as administrator icon/link
   6. Type into the command prompt the command:  powercfg -h off
4. Furthermore, you can also reduce the pagefile size to free up even more disk space (i.e., for SSD which acts as system drive).  It’s not recommending to do this since Windows 7 and 8 can crash if the system runs out of memory (i.e., RAM) and cannot access large enough pagefile.sys file.  Nonetheless, I myself had reduced the pagefile.sys file size to only 1% of the SSD disk space, recovering some disk space in the process.  I figured that my system got amble amount of RAM (16 GB to be exact), therefore I went ahead and reduced the pagefile.sys file size.  I don’t think my system can ever be out of memory unless I crazily run too many RAM hungry programs at one go.  Nonetheless, I did not disable pagefile.sys completely, because to have some paging is better than not having any.  Having some paging might be able to prevent system crash when the system is out of memory.  When a system goes into paging mode, the system will be very slow.  Whatever the case, here is how you reduce your Windows 8′s pagefile size:
   1. Accessing the Charm bar on the rightmost of the monitor as you’re facing it
   2. Click on the search icon/link
   3. Type inside the search box with Advance system settings
   4. Click on View advanced system settings link on the left panel
   5. Select System Protection tab
   6. Highlight C: drive
   7. Click on Configure button
   8. Slide the Max Usage slider in the appropriate manner to reduce the pagefile size
   9. Click OK button to save everything and exit this feature.

With following the tips I just shared, you might be able to recover a lot of disk space from your SSD.  I was able to recover around 40 GB worth of disk space from my SSD (i.e., which acts as system drive).  In the process I was able to shrink my C: drive to allow me to add an additional partition for dual booting Windows 8 and Ubuntu 13.04.  Awesome isn’t it?  Of course, the extra partition on SSD isn’t capable of holding Ubuntu system’s home directory and various other directories (i.e., in long term use), but I got lucky as I also had an extra hard drive to spare.  Nonetheless, you only need 5 GB worth of disk space for installing Ubuntu 13.04.  In my case I have 5.7 GB worth of disk space of doing this, and so I assigned 700 MB for swap drive, the rest was for root directory.  The extra hard drive would be for /home and /var directories for the Ubuntu system.  Why only 5.7 GB worth of disk space to spare on SSD C: drive when I claimed that I recovered around 40 GB worth of disk space?  Well, Windows 8 didn’t allow me to shrink SSD C: drive to the point that I could use all the 40 GB data free disk space, because some of the original data might not be moveable and had sprinkled to certain supposedly data free regions of the SSD, consequently the surrounding data free regions of the SSD were not available for partitioning.  In the end, I could only partition SSD C: drive with an extra 5.7 GB partition.

Related articles

• RAMing out some more speed (harismauk.wordpress.com)
• Taming Apple’s new Fusion Drive technology (reviews.cnet.com)
• Ask Jack: can I speed up a PC by moving programs to an external drive? (oddonion.com)
• Windows 8 to mainstream solid-state drives, says analyst (reviews.cnet.com)
• Step by Step Instructions – 8 Tips to Improve Your PC Speed: Windows 7 and Windows XP (instructionsbytech.wordpress.com)
• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 (wiki.archlinux.org)
• Dell introduces Latitude 3330 notebook (geeky-gadgets.com)
• Build Your Own Fusion Drive (mac.tutsplus.com)
• what SSD boot drive size? with protools, final cut pro, Komplete 8 Ultimate, Waves (gearslutz.com)
• Crunching The Numbers: Should You Buy A Hybrid SSD? (forbes.com)