# Solid state hard drive question



## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

I have a relatively new computer that my son built for me using components that I bought about a year ago. The computer has a 120GB Intel 530 Series SSD for the operating system and an external 160GB Western Digital hard drive for storage. I use the SSD trim function weekly and lately it's been showing that I don't have enough room left to run trim. I checked and it shows that I have 8.09GB of free space left, yet when I add up all of the files on it they only add up to 50.1GB, which includes the operating system and added programs. It seems to me that I should have about 50GB left of unused space. Any ideas?


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## Bob Sanders (Nov 10, 2013)

It looks like you're running windows 7? You shouldn't have to trim manually. Windows 7 does it automatically. I have windows 7 and a 80 gig SSD. Never trimmed manually and never had problems.

As for drive space, did you account for hibernation file, page file, hidden system files, recovery files.... etc?


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

Bob Sanders said:


> It looks like you're running windows 7? You shouldn't have to trim manually. Windows 7 does it automatically. I have windows 7 and a 80 gig SSD. Never trimmed manually and never had problems.
> 
> As for drive space, did you account for hibernation file, page file, hidden system files, recovery files.... etc?


I was unaware that Win 7 had an auto trim function. When I first got this computer up and running last year I downloaded an "SSD Toolbox" from Intel, per the paperwork that came with the SSD. 

As far as the drive space, I don't know how to find hidden files, hibernation files, etc. All I know is that when I first got this thing running, it showed about 50GB of space used. Now it's double, even though I store my files on the external drive.


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## Bob Sanders (Nov 10, 2013)

Dave Sal said:


> I was unaware that Win 7 had an auto trim function. When I first got this computer up and running last year I downloaded an "SSD Toolbox" from Intel, per the paperwork that came with the SSD.
> 
> As far as the drive space, I don't know how to find hidden files, hibernation files, etc. All I know is that when I first got this thing running, it showed about 50GB of space used. Now it's double, even though I store my files on the external drive.


Yes. Trim should be enabled in Win 7 by default but if you wish to confirm then follow this procedure:
==============================================
First, open an Elevated Command Prompt window.
To open an Elevated Command Prompt window: Click on Start Orb > Type "CMD.exe" in Search box > Right click on "CMD" and select "Run as Administrator" (If you receive a prompt confirmation, click YES)
To verify the TRIM command is enabled, type the following and press enter in the Elevated command:


fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify


The results will be as follows: DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled) DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)
To enable the TRIM command, type the following and press enter in the Elevated command:
fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0
To disable the TRIM command, type the following and press enter in the Elevated command:
fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1
===============================================





There are a lot of hidden system files on your machine that you just can't really get at. System restore points (pretty large files), your browser history and cache... hibernation, page file, windows update back up files (lots of files there) ... blah blah blah.

You can clean a lot of that out if you wish. Windows update back up files take a lot of room. Do a google search on how to delete those. System restore point's.. go to disk cleaning and erase all but the last one. If you don't use hibernation then turn it off and delete the hibernation file (google will tell you how to do it).

To view all hidden and system files then go to folder options and check off "view system and hidden files" and most of them will become visible.

Ideally though what you should do is set up a system drive (your SSD) with windows and programs and then a standard drive containing all your data (email, personal files, page file, browser cache... etc). This way your SSD never gets too full. Al my data files and cache's are stored on Drive D. My operating drive (C drive) rarely changes in size unless I add another program. I don't even use Windows Restore. I have it turned off (I do disk imaging instead).


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

"Ideally though what you should do is set up a system drive (your SSD) with windows and programs and then a standard drive containing all your data (email, personal files, page file, browser cache... etc). This way your SSD never gets too full." 

This is exactly how I originally had my system set up. The SSD was for the operating system and programs, and my external drive was used for everything else. My browser cache clears whenever I close it, and not sure about "page file". Still, even though I am not saving any files onto the SSD I am missing about 50GB.


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## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

To show the "hidden" files, open Windows Explorer (My Computer). Then go to Tools>Folder Options. Click the View tab, and change the settings to show/hide whatever you want to see.


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## TheBobmanNH (Oct 23, 2012)

It doesn't matter if you show hidden files or not, manually going through and finding files and adding them up is never going to get you the number you expect it to, unless you're using some utility to do it.

I'm guessing the extra space is taken up by either a huge page file or system backups / restore points. If for some reason your system is creating restore points often and not disposing of old ones they add up fast. Go to System->System Protection and click "configure" and see if the max u sage is cranked way up.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

TheBobmanNH said:


> It doesn't matter if you show hidden files or not, manually going through and finding files and adding them up is never going to get you the number you expect it to, unless you're using some utility to do it.
> 
> I'm guessing the extra space is taken up by either a huge page file or system backups / restore points. If for some reason your system is creating restore points often and not disposing of old ones they add up fast. Go to System->System Protection and click "configure" and see if the max u sage is cranked way up.


I'm attaching a pic of the box that popped up for the system restore settings. It shows I have it set for 50GB. Is this the problem and the missing space? Also, the page file setting is at 3974MB.


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## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

Well, no one actually came up with the obvious Answer:

GET A BIGGER SSD DRIVE!

For crying out loud, these things are so cheap now like this 250 GB Samsung 
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-I...d=1426295303&sr=8-2&keywords=256+GB+SSD+Drive

$114.00 for 250 GB ?
I'd jump on it.
Clone it with Samsung's Software provided, or use Easeus, or Acronis.
Cheers,
:thumbsup:


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## TheBobmanNH (Oct 23, 2012)

Dave Sal said:


> I'm attaching a pic of the box that popped up for the system restore settings. It shows I have it set for 50GB. Is this the problem and the missing space? Also, the page file setting is at 3974MB.


Well, that's where 50GB is going. Windows is going to fill that space no matter what.


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## MaEvy (Mar 17, 2015)

Wow SSDs have much better price per storage since the last time I checked them.
And this SSD especially with 4.7/5 score is probably highest I've seen. Thanks for the info, I'll get one for myself.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

Update: This is really weird, but I just checked the SSD available space and it's now down to where it should be. I think I figured out what was using the space, and that was my iTunes program. I was thinking of having my son help me move the iTunes folder onto the 2nd hard drive but we hadn't gotten around to that yet. But now the SSD has over 50GB of free space available. Odd.


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## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

You guys with SSDs, do you see a significant performance improvement over standard SATA II or III hard drives? 

My main desktop is 8 years old, it has worked flawlessly until a few days ago. Got 3 BSODs that day and it is now really slow and cranky. I've run chkdsk etc and it didn't find anything, but I'm gonna go ahead and get a new drive to be safe. [I have everything important already backed up on a second drive in the PC.)

So I'm just wondering if you think SSD is money well spent in terms of faster performance. 

Opinions?


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

ZZZZZ said:


> You guys with SSDs, do you see a significant performance improvement over standard SATA II or III hard drives?
> 
> My main desktop is 8 years old, it has worked flawlessly until a few days ago. Got 3 BSODs that day and it is now really slow and cranky. I've run chkdsk etc and it didn't find anything, but I'm gonna go ahead and get a new drive to be safe. [I have everything important already backed up on a second drive in the PC.)
> 
> ...


I built this computer (actually I bought the parts and my son put it together for me) last year around this time. My previous computer was an Alienware circa 2005 and couldn't even play HD videos. Now I can do that and a lot more. But to answer your question, my old computer with a standard hard drive took just over a minute to start up. This new one with the SSD takes about 20 seconds. It is lightning fast.


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## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

Dave Sal said:


> But to answer your question, my old computer with a standard hard drive took just over a minute to start up. This new one with the SSD takes about 20 seconds. It is lightning fast.


Can you zero in on the SSD as the principal factor for the improvement, or maybe other components such as different O/S, faster processor, more memory, etc. had a lot to do with it?


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## Bob Sanders (Nov 10, 2013)

ZZZZZ said:


> Can you zero in on the SSD as the principal factor for the improvement, or maybe other components such as different O/S, faster processor, more memory, etc. had a lot to do with it?


The same machine I have boots up literally twice as fast with a SSD as compared to a normal HDD.


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## Bob Sanders (Nov 10, 2013)

Dave Sal said:


> Update: This is really weird, but I just checked the SSD available space and it's now down to where it should be. I think I figured out what was using the space, and that was my iTunes program. I was thinking of having my son help me move the iTunes folder onto the 2nd hard drive but we hadn't gotten around to that yet. But now the SSD has over 50GB of free space available. Odd.


Good. Get it all cleaned up and get all your data files off of c drive onto another drive.... then get yourself a disk image program and do an image of your c drive. That way if anything goes wrong you can re load your image and it will all be EXACTLY as it was when you first did the image.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

Bob Sanders:

Greetings fellow Winnipegger!

I also have a solid state hard drive that I use for my business. I downloaded a freeware back-up program called AOMEI Back Upper Full. It allows me to make differential back-ups or incremental back-ups. And, I'm being told that Full back-ups really aren't supported simply because they take too much space and you're backing up the same stuff over and over and over again, which is wasteful of the back-up media I use.

But, for me to back-up ALL of my business files takes about 275 Megabytes. Every Christmas week there's a sale at Staples where I can buy a 16 GB thumb drive for $12, and every year I find that either the capacity of the drive I get for $12 goes up or the cost of that 16GB goes down.

I'm not all that technically savvy, but I figure that I can get 58 monthly back-ups for that $12, or that $12 thumb drive will last me almost 5 years.

Can you explain to me why people are making differential and incremental back-ups of their important files when memory nowadays is so cheap? Last Christmas I bought a Kingston 64 GB thumb drive for $28 + taxes. That's enough to last me near about 20 years worth of monthly back-ups!!!

Why do I need to use differential or incremental back-ups to save memory media space when I have far more than I'm ever going to need UNLESS I do full back-ups? With 64 Gigs of memory costing $28 + taxes, it almost makes sense to do full back-ups, otherwise that thumb drive is going to last longer than I will.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

I have the same amount of memory now as I did before, which is 4GB. I'll be doubling that one of these days. The processor was a single core in the old computer and the new one is an Intel I-5 4570 quad core. The old computer had a decent video card and this one has no video card. My son has an Apple Macbook laptop with similar specs but a standard hard drive. He is the one that convinced me to go with an SSD. His takes about twice as long to start up as mine. Plus I like that it is silent, as the old HD used to make a lot of noise.


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## Bob Sanders (Nov 10, 2013)

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> Bob Sanders:
> 
> Greetings fellow Winnipegger!
> 
> I also have a solid state hard drive that I use for my business. I downloaded a freeware back-up program called AOMEI Back Upper Full. It allows me to make differential back-ups or incremental back-ups. And, I'm being told that Full back-ups really aren't supported simply because they take too much space and you're backing up the same stuff over and over and over again, which is wasteful of the back-up media I use.


While it is true that incremental back ups save space, they can also be infected much easier. If you do full back ups then you can go back to the EXACT same period when you did your image and it is completely unaffected by other back ups. If you do incremental backups then your original file gets infected should you accidentally include a Trojan or similar when doing a routine back up.

But since storage space is pretty cheap these days I would suggest that incremental backing is preferred more because it saves time... not so much space.


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