What is consuming my hard drive by 1 gig a day?

[someoneinwa]

My SP4 has the 256GB drive and is working well for me. I've noticed however that something is taking up just over one gigabyte of storage each day, leaving me as of today with about 88GB. I have One Drive set up on the device to sync my documents, photos, and music folders (not video) so that is a big chunk of the consumed space, but I can't figure out what is going on to take another gig plus each day. The backup utility is on but is set to back up only to a dedicated external drive plugged in to my dock when the SP4 is at home. I used settings to select that new music, photos and documents are to be saved to the microSD card instead of the C drive. I know the microSD reader is working as the SP4 sees the card and music I have purchased gets stored there.

Does anyone have any ideas for other places I can check to see what might be getting written to my C drive each day. At this rate my SP4 could be out of storage space by March. I have had an SP3 that I bought on the day it launched and carried to work each day until I got the SP4 in late November and it still has over 100GB of its 256 left.

 

[xandros9]

I use CCleaner to see what files and folders use the most space and where. Its pretty cool actually.

 

[D3xt3rSM]

1. See if a Disk Cleanup does the trick

2. Maybe the update files are stuck again in the "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution" folder. I saw it has a bad habit of forgetting to clean up after itself.
a.Stop the Windows Update service
b.Delete ( or rename ) the folder
c.Start the Windows Update service and the folder should recreate after the first search of updates.

 

[SteveUAE]

If you have just switched on hibernate that will be creating a large temp file
If you have file history on that will be creating a large file ready to back-up

 

[rocketboy]

Seconding the use of ccleaner. The news app can also start taking up huge amounts of storage if left to itself. It seems to download and cache articles but never erases them. System temporary files are definitely big too.

 

[boltman2013]

Run the Disk Cleanup (Right click ssd icon: Properties ) THEN and the in same window run "Clean up System files" that should get you some significant space back. Do this every so on along with CCLeaner.

Turn off Hibernate...Tame restore point space, Check Index settings.

I only have an M3 and still have 72GB left even without a recent run of the above steps...perhaps pare down what you are storing on your 256GB ssd...do you need all that?..be efficient and be happy. Don't be a digital hoarder. Use external drives, NAS or Cloud sometimes for certain static data.Like ISO's or Movies you may never watch again.