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C: (exclusively a program drive) seems to constantly grow

My notebook as 1TB of SSD, partitioned into drives C: thru G:. Reasonable amount of unallocated space, but C: seems to keep growing. Twice I have repartitioned to put more into C:, but I am not installing a lot of new stuff, so don't understand the growth. Previously, I found that Recycle was not getting emptied, so did that and got a lot of space back. Just did it again and there was not much in it; C: is now still pretty full. I have used WinDirStat but not revealing some unexpected, unused program that gets my attention.

Note: I faithfully have all programs installed on C:, and no app data; all of the app data is D thru G. I save off D-G daily to an NAS unit, and C: is constantly updated by Carbonite. This allows me to re-image when needed without restoring to old data.

John

My notebook as 1TB of SSD, partitioned into drives C: thru G:. Why? No need to do this.

C: is likely growing because of Windows 10 Updates.

Open Disk Cleanup (Admin Tools) and run it. Select Cleanup System Files, OK and allow it to calculate. Now Cleanup, OK and allow to complete. May take 15 to 20 minutes.

Open c:\windows\software distribution\download. Are there very old downloads in here? You can delete everything more than 30 days old.

Start there and please let us know.

John

Also see if your computer has a backup program that is making backups of your system on the C: drive (not uncommon). These will be hidden files. Look for these.

Put backups on a USB hard drive.

fred hakim

I use TreeSizeFree to identify where the space is being used. It will give you a directory tree organized by size that you can drill into to locate the space consumers, including directories housing those insidious shadow copy backup files that John mentioned are created by many backup programs.

See: https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

Once you know what is using the space, you can check in to what can or can not be done about them.

John

Tree Size is excellent - I have it here and use it myself.

fred hakim

Note that treesize is also available in a portable form (no installation needed). to get it it, when you click the big blue download button on the treesizefree page, it takes you to the download page with a dropdown of which you want. The zip file contains the entire free version.. Just unpack the folder and it will run from wherever you save it. I keep a copy on my "tools" USB drive.

nobus

i have read somewhere you want to run Windiwstat as admin, with "show hidden files" enabled
can you post you windirstat result?

Qlemo

Does WinDirStat show some size for System Volume Information? By default W10 allows a lot of space to be allocated for restore points and volume shadow copies.
How large is your system partition now?

Gerald Connolly

As you already have Windirstat, make sure that you run it as an administrator, so that it sees everything.
Do a screenshot and compare with another run a day/week/month later to work out where you disk space is being consumed

If you don’t understand where, post the screenshots !

nobus

Gerald, tx for repeating my suggestion

Gerald Connolly

No probs Nobus

Mike Caldwell

ASKER

I have no explanation for this: I did nothing, left for vacation for a week, and when I returned my C: had dropped by about 30%, so now plenty of room.

Gerald Connolly

So it could have been due to a windows update, some big ones recently with win10 upgrades

nobus

the bottom line is that you should go more often on vacation !
could it be there was a windows old, that after 30 days was removed?

Mike Caldwell

ASKER

I removed the Windows Old months ago. This is really odd.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Mike Caldwell

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nobus

not at all - we only don't know the cause - nor the remedy