Computer Storage Optimization

 Welcome to PC Villa!!!

In this blog, I'll be discussing about how you can optimize your storage capacity. 

If you always run out of storage and then you look all through your PC to delete what is 'useless', then this blog is for you.

First, I'll like to tell you why I decided to write on storage capacity optimization: 

Out of curiosity, I was wondering where lot of Gigabytes of storage were hiding on my PC. I had not installed a lot of programs and applications but around 40GB was already used up (not including the installed applications). I began searching  and I found out the culprits. I was able to retrieve 16GB. How glad I was!!!

I could have retrieved up to 22GB+ but I'll tell you why I didn't.

I experimented these methods I highlighted below on three PCs. One with 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM PC where I retrieved 16GB, another 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM PC where I retrieved 6GB and 80GB HDD, 2GB RAM PC where I retrieved 3.2GB. If you follow these steps I'm about to show you, you might not be able to retrieve exactly what I got. The first two PCs I used run Windows 10 while the third runs Windows 7.

LET'S EXPLORE:

A. Disable Hibernation file

Hibernation file is what keeps your work intact when you hibernate your PC and makes you pick up from where you left off. It acts like RAM on your primary storage device. Since I don't hibernate my PCs, I got rid of it. 

⚠️ If you do hibernate your PC you might want to skip this.

 Step 1: You can check how much space hibernation file is using by going to:

 Settings > Storage(at the left panel) > click your storage drive or click 'show more categories' > System and Reserved

You'll see System files, Reserved memory, Virtual memory, Hibernation file and System restore.

 You might see something different on older versions of Windows 10, Windows 11 or other versions of Windows. In older version of Windows 10, I'm not sure you'll see Reserved memory. I didn't see it in the system with older Windows 10 version. If you're using Windows 7, you might not be able to see hibernation file through settings but you can know through Power settings.

 Step 2: You want to disable it? Run Command prompt as administrator.

The way you can do that it is: type cmd in search bar, right click and then click 'Run as administrator'.

 Step 3: Type in this in an elevated command prompt: 

 powercfg /hibernate off and press Enter.

 Step 4: Restart your PC

 Step 5: Check Settings as described above to see if Hibernation file is gone. If it has, please tell me in the comment section so that others can know how it went.

 If you want to enable hibernation later type: powercfg /hibernate on

 

B. Disk Cleanup

Step 1: Open File Explorer

Step 2: Right click on Local disk C: or any other partition at the left panel and click 'Properties'.

Step 3: Click Disk Cleanup and wait for scanning to be completed

Step 4: Click 'Clean up system files' and wait for scanning to be done.

Step 5: Check the things you'd like to get rid of and then click OK.

C: Delete Restore Points

Restore point is what makes you reverse your system to a previous state when your PC develops software problems. 

⚠️ You might not want to delete restore points if you are kind of pessimistic about the future of your PC.

Step 1: Run Command prompt as administrator.

Step 2: Type this in an elevated command prompt: vssadmin list shadows  

You'll see a list of restore points. 

When you update windows and some applications, shadows of previous versions are kept in case you want to revert.

Step 3.1: Type this in an elevated command prompt: 

vssadmin delete shadows /Shadow={shadow copy ID}

In place of {shadow copy ID} copy the ID of the one you want delete (with the curly bracket). The ID is on the first line.

Step 3.2: If you want to get rid of everything type: vssadmin delete shadows /all

Step 4: Press Enter and then Y to confirm you want to delete.

Step 5: Restart your PC

If something happened please, write your comment and tell me how many Gigabytes you retrieved and let others know how it went.

D: Limit Restore Point size

Step 1: Search for Restore Point in the search bar.

Step 2: Look up to check if you're under 'System Protection tab'. 

Click on the drive you're using and then click 'configure'.

Step 3: Drag the bar of max usage from whatever percentage it is to a lower level.

⚠️ If you're getting a warning that you can't drag to a level, it means that space is occupied. Extend it till you get no warning, click 'Apply' and then 'OK'. You can decide to delete the whole restore point here too.

Step 4: Restart your PC.

E: Delete temporary files

Temporary files are created over time when using your PC. Deleting them does not harm your system. Deleting temporary files is what can be done over and over because they re-create themselves when they are needed.

Step 1: Press Windows key + R 

Step 2: Type temp into the box and press Enter key.

Step 3: Select all the files with Control key + A and press Shift + Delete. 

Pressing Shift + Delete won't let those files go to recycle bin, they'll be deleted permanently.

Step 4: Press Windows key + R again and type  %temp% and repeat step 3.

⚠️ If you get a warning that you can't delete a file, it's because it's in use by an application. Skip it and delete others.

F. Enable storage Sense

Storage sense is a new feature in Windows 10 that enables temporary files to be deleted automatically at a set frequency.

If you don't see storage sense then your Windows 10 is not updated. It should be on Windows 11 too, though I'm not sure since I've not used Windows 11.

Go to Settings > Storage(at the left panel). You'll see Storage sense at the top. 

Enable it and adjust the settings to your preference.

🛑 I tried this next method to check for any complication but there wasn't at the moment of disabling and after disabling. Though I later enabled it because it's useful.

G. Disable Reserved Storage

You can find Reserved storage in Settings > Storage(at the left panel) > click your storage drive or click 'show more categories' > System and Reserved.

Reserved storage is an important feature of Windows 10 that comes into play when you want to update windows. LEAVING IT ENABLED IS SAFE. While it is enabled, you'll experience hitch free update of Windows. If you disable it, you'll still be able to update Windows (if you want to).

It occupies around 7GB of your storage. Now you see why I couldn't retrieve up to 22GB!!!

Another one like Reserved storage is System Files. 

⚠️⚠️If you see how to get rid of System files somewhere else, please don't do it.

 What you'd be told is to delete is a file called Win SxS. It's a very important file required to keep Windows running. Deleting it might result into an unbootable device.

System files is necessary to keep Windows running smoothly. Deleting it will ruin Windows and render it useless. 

On my PC system files took  up to 16.3GB (it varies for different PCs). 

If you disable Reserved Storage your system will run very fine. You might only experience little hitches if you want to update Windows, especially if you don't have enough space during update.

If you want to go ahead to disable Reserved Storage follow these steps:

Step 1: Run Command prompt as administrator: Type fsutil storagereserve query C: in an elevated command prompt to know if reserved storage is enabled, if you can't get it in settings.

Step 2: Type this in an elevated command prompt to disable Reserved Storage:

 DISM /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled

 If you want to enable it later, run Command prompt as admin and type this: 

 DISM /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Enabled

In the same section of Reserved Storage in settings, you will see virtual memory. Please leave that too because it let's your system run multiple apps at the same time.

P.S: If I discover other methods for optimizing PC storage device, I'll update this blog.

Thanks for reading. 

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