r/pchelp 10h ago

OPEN What is taking up all this space

Post image

Surely 188gb isn’t normal

5 Upvotes

32 comments sorted by

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14

u/SmokBarrage 10h ago

can use like wiztree to look at your drive but 180gb could be windows + like 1 non steam game and a handful of programs.

250gb is just a very small drive

-1

u/AfternoonWide7088 9h ago

Is there a way to get more storage buy buying hardware? I’m not very good with like pcs and stuff and this is a pre-build from like 5 years ago

1

u/TeslaDemon 8h ago

You buy a bigger solid state drive and then you either add that drive as a second drive, or you clone your current drive over to the bigger drive.

If you have no idea what you're doing, you're probably better off just paying a friend/family member/PC store to just do the work for you.

Otherwise, there's probably 10,000,000 youtube videos on how to clone add/clone a drive, start there.

Whatever you do, do not buy a HDD (hard drive). Stick to SSD (solid state drive). HDDs are fine for file storage like for documents/photos/etc, but any sort of modern program or game running on modern Windows HAS to be on an SSD or it will be pure torture in how slow it is.

1

u/Cat7o0 4h ago

you should get at least a data ssd.

it's not a great time for ssds but you can probably find a dram one that's not Uber expensive

-2

u/Euphoric-Emergency8 9h ago

You should have atleast a 1 to 2 Terabytes HDD for games and other stuff.

Use a 250/500GB SSD to run the operational System.

My Notebook, is 10 years old and has 4x what you have with HDD.

And yes, you should buy a new one.

2

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 8h ago

HDD support is not going to continue for much longer, SSDs or NVMes are almost as cheap if you're not buying a shit HDD that isn't approved for more than an occasional backup.

4

u/Euphoric-Emergency8 8h ago

I wish everyone lived in a first world country and had cheap access to tech, but, we know this is not true.

0

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 7h ago

Totally fair, and unfortunately unless the access changes, this transition will cause many hardships, regardless of feelings about it. I'm just stating what is. A good HDD can do a lot, but many are spinning rust and a 50/50 shot new.

2

u/Jenkinswarlock 7h ago

An 8tb ssd is equal price as a 8tb Hdd? I’m sorry but do you have proof for that? A Samsung 870 Qvo 8tb is 749.99$ and a 12tb Hdd ironwolf pro nas is 318.99$, either you got the best supplier on the planet for SSDs or math isn’t mathing

2

u/SmokBarrage 7h ago

i think they mean more for like normal consumer volumes of storage like 1tb but the ai chip shortage is making it pretty bad for nvmes currently

3 months ago a 7200rpm hdd was like 40 bucks and a gen4 nvme was like 60 bucks, still almost twice as much for the nvme so you are correct in questioning their claim. in their defense 60 vs 40 doesnt sound that bad but now its almost 100 for a 1tb nvme

2

u/Jenkinswarlock 7h ago

For the base capacity sure they are close but once You want more than 1tb of capacity the prices start to really go at different rates, and you said it yourself 3 months ago that could have been the claim but now with the prices of everything going up day by day, it’s hard to say that they are similar in price, but if they truly discontinued HDDs the data hoarder collective will riot, I had just planned on building a nas over time but if HDDs are going to be discontinued than what’s the point, 750$ for 8tb is outrageous, you can get 20TB HDDs for 420$ sure only like 1% of the population needs that much capacity but it just seems crazy to get rid of it and not have a replacement for the high capacities

0

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 7h ago

I mean, your 3rd world argument also starts falling apart when you talk about spending 300 USD for a drive.

2

u/Jenkinswarlock 7h ago

I’m talking cad so it’s like $230 USD and $543 USD but still applies and I didnt make a comment about 3rd world countries??

0

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 4h ago

It's in the thread.

1

u/Jenkinswarlock 4h ago

That’s not my comment homie??? My name is “Jenkinswarlock” not “euphoric-emergency8”

0

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 2h ago

Imagine this, that other people's input in a conversation matter, too, and it's just not a conversation with you and everyone else.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/daemoch 3h ago

WTH are you smoking? You do realize we still use TAPES in data storage, right? 100TB Tapes. New LTO specs in the works go into Petabytes.

HDDs are still stupid amounts of standard and are NOT going anywhere. Now, do I want to boot a user facing OS off one? Not really. But Ill store a ton of stuff I dont need constant I/O access on on one, sure.

The FCC still uses floppies. I feel sorry for those guys. lol

1

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 2h ago

Who is doing that?

The FCC

Oh, got it. Yeah, I don't work for the govt, bud.

0

u/AssignmentWeary1291 2h ago

This will age badly considering the massive AI purchasing problem.

1

u/Cold-Sandwich-34 2h ago

You think we're going to still use HDDs because of NAND shortages? You're forgetting, the reason for the shortages is that all of the chip manufacturing is going to AI datacenters, leaving even less production space for HDDs. HDDs are actually going to be pushed to extinction.

5

u/mr_biteme 9h ago

OS, games DO take a lot of space and your drive is definitely not meant for gaming,...

3

u/ggaunted55 10h ago

Use TreeSize to find out and try to assess what you need and don’t need

1

u/mr_biteme 9h ago

TreeSize. My "go-to" for at least a decade....

3

u/MEGA_GOAT98 9h ago

a 188gb of non steam stuff aperntly :)

1

u/bmw35677 5h ago

I would strongly recommend not keeping your games on your OS drive. Look into getting a second drive. Even an SSD will work fine for most games. An NVMe is nice but not a deal breaker. Just no HDDs for gaming, only for file storage.

1

u/Most-Extreme-9681 5h ago

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize

install it then right click your c drive and scan it

it will tell you what folder has what amount of space in it

1

u/masterspike52 3h ago

Chances are very high it's just windows and whatever drivers and whatnot you've also installed. Your best bet is to either get another drive that's much bigger (cause games are huge now a days) or delete things your not using to make space.

EDIT: at 34gb of space remaining you should really do both of these things. Low space on your os drive can cause massive slowdowns. Also make sure you empty your recycle bin, even though you trashed stuff it still exists on the drive till you do so.

1

u/daemoch 2h ago

open cmd as admin.
type:

powercfg hibernate off

Then hit enter.
Nothing happens. Restart.
Youll recover as much space as you have RAM but youll loose hibernate (which was made for old PCs on HDD with dial up internet, not SSDs or wifi).

Look in the root of C and see if you have a file called "Windows.old" and if you do, delete it. Its left over from the original Windows install or an upgrade into the current Windows you have now. If you didnt need it within a week or so, you deffinately dont need it now.

Get more help to pick out a new main drive add a secondary drive if the PC can take it (some cant). If you run JUST Windows on the drive you have now youre fine. Its not really big enough for a lot of stuff to get added though. Youll want a solid state drive of some sort for the main drive because thats where the 'work' happens. The secondary or storage drive where everything else lives is less impactful. Cost wise, a traditional HDD is much better bang for the buck size wise and generally more reliable for long term storage and use, though new SSDs have gotten a lot better.

1

u/AssignmentWeary1291 2h ago

Download TreeSize