What are the large fluctuations in drive free space?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mickey Segal
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Mickey Segal

After an upgrade from XP to Vista, the "free space" on my 80 GB hard drive
fluctuates back and forth between 36 GB and 42 GB, having hit both the
higher and lower numbers several times. Using Windows Explorer and TreeSize
I don't see where the extra material is, but both tools are denied access to
a few folders such as System Volume Information.

Is the 6 GB swing due to changes in size of Restore Points or some other
expected Windows function? 6 GB of restore information is more than I would
have predicted for the 24.6 GB of files that TreeSize reports.
 
Mickey Segal said:
After an upgrade from XP to Vista, the "free space" on my 80 GB hard drive
fluctuates back and forth between 36 GB and 42 GB, having hit both the
higher and lower numbers several times. Using Windows Explorer and
TreeSize I don't see where the extra material is, but both tools are
denied access to a few folders such as System Volume Information.

Is the 6 GB swing due to changes in size of Restore Points or some other
expected Windows function? 6 GB of restore information is more than I
would have predicted for the 24.6 GB of files that TreeSize reports.
Click to expand...

It could be partly System restore,part page file if not set to a specific
size and part hiberfil.sys which is the file created by Vista's power
management scheme.
 
JimR said:
It could be partly System restore,part page file if not set to a specific
size and part hiberfil.sys which is the file created by Vista's power
management scheme.
Click to expand...

How can I check how big these files are?

I don't see a setting to control the hard drive space devoted to system
restore, as one could do in Windows XP.

My paging file is set to 1024 MB, but I haven't been changing it.

I hadn't turned on hibernation when the computer was in Windows XP and
hibernation seems to be a component of sleep in Vista, so I'm not sure which
settings are involved.
 
Using vssadmin showed that 12 GB was devoted to backups. Early after
installation I was able to see some description of the contents of System
Volume Information. There was a 12 GB file and an 8 GB file. I don't
remember if I did something special to see this or if it just no longer
works. It seems like the 12 GB has been there consistently and the rest
seems to come and go, but I don't know what the rest is.
 
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