Extreme HDD Use -- Vista maintenance?

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Guest

I am a newbie, so i may be off base.

it seems to me that an astounding amount of hdd is being consumed. when my
computer first arrived 15 days ago, i had 232 GB free space. i now have 189
GB free space. that's a staggering 43 GB!!!

where is it all going? admittedly, I downloaded a lot of ms software (their
onecare antivirus and antispyware package, and ms's sql trial software, to
name two), but these downloads are measured in dimensions of *MB*, and i am
seeing my hdd drop ito *GB*.

can i assume that this hdd load is due to Vista's maintenance? what else can
it be?
 
my hdd is rated 250 GB, vista initially took 18 GB (thus, 232 GB initial free
space), and has now expanded to 43 GB! -- in 15 days. will this continue?
can i opt against such restore points, or have them sent to external storage
(dvd, or external hdd)? what is vista storing that amounts to 43 GB - that's
an astonishing amount of storage?! what happens if a user's hdd capacity is
only 80 GB? should i consider installing another hdd, or transferring my
files - this sounds ridiculous because *my files* occupy but a fraction of
vista's - to an external storage (hdd or dvd).

i have 32-bit home premium, btw.
 
|I am a newbie, so i may be off base.
|
| it seems to me that an astounding amount of hdd is being consumed. when my
| computer first arrived 15 days ago, i had 232 GB free space. i now have
189
| GB free space. that's a staggering 43 GB!!!
|
| where is it all going? admittedly, I downloaded a lot of ms software
(their
| onecare antivirus and antispyware package, and ms's sql trial software, to
| name two), but these downloads are measured in dimensions of *MB*, and i
am
| seeing my hdd drop ito *GB*.
|
| can i assume that this hdd load is due to Vista's maintenance? what else
can
| it be?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a formula to convert retail size to actual size:

multiply actual size by 0.931

Retail Drive Size 250GB Actual Drive Size = 232.75GB

This assumes that the manufacturer is using 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes
(instead of 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes as they should).

rounded out figures:

80gb = 74gb 100gb = 93gb 120gb = 112gb 160gb = 149gb 200gb = 186gb etc etc

http://ask-leo.com/why_isnt_there_80_gigabytes_of_free_space_on_my_empty_80_gigabyte_drive.html
 
my hdd is rated 250 GB, vista initially took 18 GB (thus, 232 GB initial free
space), and has now expanded to 43 GB! -- in 15 days. will this continue?
can i opt against such restore points, or have them sent to external storage
(dvd, or external hdd)? what is vista storing that amounts to 43 GB - that's
an astonishing amount of storage?! what happens if a user's hdd capacity is
only 80 GB? should i consider installing another hdd, or transferring my
files - this sounds ridiculous because *my files* occupy but a fraction of
vista's - to an external storage (hdd or dvd).
Click to expand...
Have a read up on Previous File Versions. Vista stores several
revisions of a file. On older OSes it was called Volume Shadow Copy.

It won't continue and you can reclaim the space either by turning off
System Restore or deleting all but the last restore point. It's only
doind it a lot at the moment because there'll be a raft of updates,
patches and drivers being installed on the new Vista installation but
it will level off. It's set to only go to a certain percentage of the
drive anyway and will never come close to filling one.
 
Microsoft sets the size of several items to an absurd excess because it uses
a straight percentage of hard drive size. (When I used to supervise
programmers I would note this kind of thoughtless error as a beginners
mistake that no serious programmer should make. It really is incredibly
incompetent not to set an upper limit.)

MS sets the System Restore repository size to a straight 15% of the hard
drive capacity. With hard drives in the hundreds of GB range this tends to
creates RP's going back further than it would ever make sense to use. In
vista it is more difficult than in XP to adjust this. See these 2 links.

http://jimiz.net/blog/2007/02/15/vista-system-restore-preferences/
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/decrease_storage_space-allocated_to_system_restore.htm

SR is a good feature, and it not be wise to lower it too much. Unless you
need the disk space, you could leave it for now. If you do reduce it. I'd
set it to maybe about 20GB.

Another item that is routinely set to an excessive level is the Temporary
Internet File cache size. MS actually sets this so high that it can
adversely affect performance. (When the cache gets too large, IE may spend
more time searching the cache that just reloading the page.) 60 to 70 MB is
a good size with a broadband connection.
 
Addendum -

Please keep in mind if you make any adjustments that in Vista, the
'shadowstorage' reserved space is the repository for previous version file
backups as well as SRP's.
 
as i understand the following cmd window output, vista will use "Maximum
Shadow Copy Storage space: 34.933 GB." but , as i've said, vista has already
consumed *43* GB. what am i reading incorrectly?


C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{3554bc43-c115-11db-962b-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume:
(C:)\\?\Volume{3554bc43-c115-11db-962b-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 30.816 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 31.966 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 34.933 GB


C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage
 
nweissma said:
my hdd is rated 250 GB, vista initially took 18 GB (thus, 232 GB initial
free
space), and has now expanded to 43 GB! -- in 15 days. will this continue?
can i opt against such restore points, or have them sent to external
storage
(dvd, or external hdd)? what is vista storing that amounts to 43 GB -
that's
an astonishing amount of storage?! what happens if a user's hdd capacity
is
only 80 GB? should i consider installing another hdd, or transferring my
files - this sounds ridiculous because *my files* occupy but a fraction of
vista's - to an external storage (hdd or dvd).

i have 32-bit home premium, btw.
Click to expand...

Firstly The 250GB disk size is what the the manufacturer states, but it is
seen in an OS as a 232GB drive. Manufacturer's report drive size based on
1MB = 1000 bytes (it's a marketing thing to make it appear as if the drive
is larger), but computers use binary so 1MB=1024 bytes. Then some space is
taken up when the drive is formatted, so you start with less than 232 GB.

Second you state that Vista took 18GB. That is much more than what is used
in a standard installation. Was Vista installed on a drive where XP had
been, either as an upgrade or clean install? If so the previous
installation of XP would have been wrapped up in the Windows.old folder
which can be deleted. If not I don't know what took up the 18GB.

After that system restore, volume shadow copies, page file, hibernation file
(equal in size to the amount of installed RAM) take up more space.
 
nweissma

You can use the Disk Cleanup Tool to delete all but the most current restore
point. Make sure you delete all temporary files also.

After you do this, use the vssadmin command to set the system restore
maximum allocated size to 10GB. This is plenty of space for SR to work with.
Here is the command.

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=10.0GB

More information is here:

How to adjust disk space in Windows Vista:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/diskspacev.html
 
nweissma said:
my hdd is rated 250 GB, vista initially took 18 GB (thus, 232 GB initial
free
space), and has now expanded to 43 GB! -- in 15 days. will this continue?
can i opt against such restore points, or have them sent to external
storage
(dvd, or external hdd)? what is vista storing that amounts to 43 GB -
that's
an astonishing amount of storage?! what happens if a user's hdd capacity
is
only 80 GB? should i consider installing another hdd, or transferring my
files - this sounds ridiculous because *my files* occupy but a fraction of
vista's - to an external storage (hdd or dvd).

i have 32-bit home premium, btw.
Click to expand...


This can be adjusted if you feel it is taking too much space up.
 
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