How many dang hidden files do PC computers have?

[Tgo01]

My 120 gig hard drive shows almost 60 gigs are being used yet I can only see 32 gigs being used. Is this normal? Are the rest hidden files or what? I always knew there were some hidden files on computers but I never realized it was so much. Normally it wouldn't matter but it's a pretty small SSD and I was wondering why it was filling up so fast.

[Buckwheet]

I am going to put 1 silver on a hidden porn volume.

[Allereli]

do you ever empty your browser cache? You might want to set it to empty upon closing.

to view hidden files: From explorer, Tools, Folder Options, View tab, Hidden files and folders section, view hidden files and folders radio button

A lot of it is also likely windows updates/install files. What OS are you running?

[Bobmuhthol]

Enable "show hidden files and folders" and check again, but I have a weird feeling that you don't have 30 GB of hidden files. Are you sure you're not just looking at the size of the "My Documents" folder and ignoring that there is a lot of other shit on the hard drive?

[Allereli]

also, how many movies have you downloaded?

[Kerranger]

also, how many movies have you downloaded?

In addition to this, if youre downloading torrents, some programs preallocate space by default. Meaning, if you have a bunch of files racked up but not DLed yet, the space will still be considered used.

[Bobmuhthol]

Anyone who downloads torrents needs to fucking stop immediately.

[JustDan]

Anyone who downloads torrents needs to fucking stop immediately.

Why, just out of curiousity?

[Bobmuhthol]

It's a hugely inefficient system and a legal liability nightmare. Being a completely free to use and open system, torrents are like the playground for people who want to stick it to the man but are too stupid to understand that the man is playing next to them. If you're 13, go torrent crazy. But if you have any sophistication, you wouldn't be caught dead in that cesspool.

[Ashliana]

You're always going on about how terrible torrents are, compared to Usenet--how exactly is Usenet better than Torrents--if, for example, you spend $5 a month on a Torrent IP proxy like BTGuard?

[Bobmuhthol]

Usenet does not depend on other people uploading to you. That's exactly one reason it's better, of many.

I'd also like to see you download from torrents HD episodes of shows the same day that they air at 250 Mbps (although I only have 100 Mbps now :( )

[Androidpk]

It's a hugely inefficient system and a legal liability nightmare. Being a completely free to use and open system, torrents are like the playground for people who want to stick it to the man but are too stupid to understand that the man is playing next to them. If you're 13, go torrent crazy. But if you have any sophistication, you wouldn't be caught dead in that cesspool.

Shows how much you know.

[Bobmuhthol]

I don't get it?

[Tgo01]

Well I enabled hidden folders and files and I didn't really see a difference in disk space usage.


Are you sure you're not just looking at the size of the "My Documents" folder and ignoring that there is a lot of other shit on the hard drive?

Maybe I'm missing something totally obvious but if I check the properties on my C drive it says 55 GB used with 57 GB of free space then if I select every folder inside of my C drive and check properties it says the folders take up 33 GB of space. At the moment I have no games on my computer, I don't download videos, all of my music is on my HDD and I don't use torrents or anything like that. I do have some little programs like word and Itunes and shit like that but no one single program that is a GB, most aren't even half a gig. What the heck is taking up 55 GB of space?

[Allereli]

Well I enabled hidden folders and files and I didn't really see a difference in disk space usage.



you won't see a difference in disk space usage, you'll just be able to see more files

Windows 7 alone is 19 GB on my work computer

[Tgo01]

you won't see a difference in disk space usage, you'll just be able to see more files

Oh I thought if I couldn't see them it wasn't calculating how much space they were taking up when I checked properties. Either way I still didn't see too many hidden files or folders anyway, nothing that jumped out at me anyway.

[Bobmuhthol]

It depends on what you're talking about. If you fill your hard drive with a 20 GB hidden folder, it will show up in My Computer when you look at how much free space is on the drive. But if you select all the folders in your C:\ directory and look at properties, the total space will not include the 20 GB hidden folder. That's why I said to enable hidden stuff and check again -- if nothing (or little) new shows up, then the problem isn't hidden files.

I'm not sure what's happening to you. This is what I see on a 160 GB partition (true 160 GB, not 160 billion bytes) with 49.1 GB of free space when I select all the folders and look at Properties:

541,861 Files, 64,535 Folders
Size: 111 GB (119,571,150,944 bytes)
Size on disk: 112 GB (120,748,508,315 bytes)

[Tgo01]

But if you select all the folders in your C:\ directory and look at properties, the total space will not include the 20 GB hidden folder. That's why I said to enable hidden stuff and check again -- if nothing (or little) new shows up, then the problem isn't hidden files.

That's what I'm doing. With folders hidden I have 32.2GB used when selecting all folders and checking properties, with folders not hidden it's 32.9GB used. That's sort of what I expected hidden folders to take up.

[Back]

Empty the Recycle Bin? Have you run CCleaner?

[Bobmuhthol]

Right, I'm not sure what would explain the roughly 25 GB that is unaccounted for. Do you have multiple user accounts? It probably shouldn't matter but I know NTFS likes to block "unauthorized" users from even seeing files in other accounts.

[Ashliana]

This is a great, free tool that will analyze your drive and show you, visually, what's taking up the space on your PC.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/
http://download.cnet.com/WinDirStat/3000-2248_4-10614593.html

It's useful for identifying things that take up a lot of space that you may not know about--like installation files you presumed were automatically deleted. Take caution before deleting anything system-related, even if it looks like a duplicate. Windows 7 keeps numerous nearly-identical DLL files that can take up a lot of space, but you can fuck up your programs if you delete them.

[Latrinsorm]

Shows how much you know.I laughed.

#1 helpful post

[Tgo01]

This is a great, free tool that will analyze your drive and show you, visually, what's taking up the space on your PC.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/
http://download.cnet.com/WinDirStat/3000-2248_4-10614593.html

It's useful for identifying things that take up a lot of space that you may not know about--like installation files you presumed were automatically deleted. Take caution before deleting anything system-related, even if it looks like a duplicate. Windows 7 keeps numerous nearly-identical DLL files that can take up a lot of space, but you can fuck up your programs if you delete them.

I used that program and I just added up the things that take up at least a third of a meg and it still only added up to 32GB being used. Is it possible it's just a display bug on my harddrive?

[Tgo01]

I got CCleaner and that cleared out 3 gigs of shit on my harddrive but the discrepency remained the same. Kerranger suggested I try a program called TreeSize and that found the problem. A 12 gig file and an 8 gig file, I forgot the names since I've already gotten rid of them but the 12 gig file was for my virtual memory (which I moved my virtual memory to my HDD) and the 8 gig file was for hibernation mode which was odd since I had hibernation mode disabled and it didn't even list as an option on the shut down menu, but I read how to get rid of it. Only 31 gigs of space being used, that's more like it.

Thanks everyone.

[Bobmuhthol]

Yeah, you definitely want to get rid of that hibernation shit, but you might not want to disable your page file which is what it sounds like you did (though 12 GB is a huge page file).

[Tgo01]

Yeah, you definitely want to get rid of that hibernation shit, but you might not want to disable your page file which is what it sounds like you did (though 12 GB is a huge page file).

I read I could set it up so the virtual memory comes from my HDD instead of my SSD (which is where Windows is), is that a bad idea?

[Kerranger]

Yeah, you definitely want to get rid of that hibernation shit, but you might not want to disable your page file which is what it sounds like you did (though 12 GB is a huge page file).

Getting rid of it/disabling it IS a bad idea. He didn't disable it though. He moved it to another drive. It will be fine as long as Windows knows where it is.

[Bobmuhthol]

Wouldn't you want to use SSD to host the page file though? The whole point is to host the things you need the fastest access to, after all.

I'll let Microsoft make the argument for me.


Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD.

[WRoss]

So what's the deal with the hiberfil? Mine is almost 6 gigs.

[Bobmuhthol]

I cannot think of a single reason a normal person would want to use hibernation mode. Save yourself the hard drive space (and system load).

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15140/what-is-hiberfil.sys-and-how-do-i-delete-it/

[Tgo01]

Wouldn't you want to use SSD to host the page file though? The whole point is to host the things you need the fastest access to, after all.

I'll let Microsoft make the argument for me.

Well sugar snaps. Guess I'll put it back. Man 12 gigs, that's what Windows sets it to automatically though. Actually looking at it now Windows suggests I use 18 gigs but sets it to 12 if I let it handle the amount.


So what's the deal with the hiberfil? Mine is almost 6 gigs.

From the limited amount I now know on the subject that's the file Windows uses when you put your computer into hibernation mode. If you never use hibernation you should get rid of that file. This (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15140/what-is-hiberfil.sys-and-how-do-i-delete-it/) website helped me.

[Kerranger]

Wouldn't you want to use SSD to host the page file though? The whole point is to host the things you need the fastest access to, after all.

I'll let Microsoft make the argument for me.

[/B]

Its not really an argument. There is no need to move it, except that in this case, he was worried about his memory, saw that he could move it, and did so. Which solved his memory complaint. The only thing i said was....AS LONG AS WINDOWS KNOWS WHERE IT IS, IT WILL BE FINE, and it will.

[Latrinsorm]

Daragons delete page files all the time, and they're the oldest religion in the world. Question it and get your jaw rammed through a brick, Showal showals.

[Bobmuhthol]

Its not really an argument. There is no need to move it, except that in this case, he was worried about his memory, saw that he could move it, and did so. Which solved his memory complaint. The only thing i said was....AS LONG AS WINDOWS KNOWS WHERE IT IS, IT WILL BE FINE, and it will.

Maybe you don't know the definition of the word argument? Although you seem to be turning into the argument you originally thought it was.