How much free space should I keep on my HDD?

Question

I've heard that one should not allow a HDD's free memory get too low because it will cause instability in a computer.

At what point should I begin to delete items on my HDD?

For example, right now my primary 40GB HDD has a capacity of 32.8GB of useable space. Of this, 27.1GB is used and 5.69GB is free.

Is this cutting it a little too close?

Big Question: Should I "compress" the drive to save space? If I do, will this affect the operation of my computer? If so, in what way?

Answer 1

NO DON'T COMPRESS That will mess up your computer I know I have done it not fun

I would Just Buy A new Larger HD or External Or Internal

Just get a Larger Hard Drive

Answer 2

Here's the skinny.

As drives get fuller and fuller, the time it takes the computer to find files or edit or create them increases dramatically.

From 0 to 60% capacity, the read/write rate is close to the operating maximum for the drive. (Newer drives usually have better access rates.) Once you get to 70 or 80% full, you hit a wall and things slow up in a big way. You may already have noticed this problem.

Big, heavy duty commercial websites that have to have the maximum access speeds will actually use enormous racks of small drives, 10 GB was the standard a year or two ago, and will never let the data on anyone drive exceed 50%.

Compressing the drive will just compound you problem, because in addition to the read/write overhead, you're making your processor do a compression algorithm ob the data.

Here's what I would do. I would actually get a second 40 GB Hard drive (or bigger) and insert as a slave drive. Move all of the files that are not needed: documents, music, movies, save games for games that will allow you to specify a drive path; to the new disk. This is going to be your data read/write drive. Keep the OS, and whatever excutable programs you have on the master, this is going to be your program read disk.

These are the advantages:

1) You put all the files you use only intemittently on a drive that isn't being accessed constantly to run programs.
2) You get better read/write performance on both drives and you increase your space.

You'll want to do a disk defrag on both disks when you are done. Hard drives are a lot like a pancake stack of old style record players. Each disk in the stack has it's own "arm" that moves across the disk as it spins, looking for your files. Old records had a single continuous groove moving in from the edge as the record span, so the arm didn't jump at all looking for each song. (Unless you picked up by hand and moved it.) On a hard drive, files can be in different grooves, and even on diferent sections on the stack of disks, so several arms in the stack can have to jump around a bit putting the pieces of the file. When you defrag, the PC tries to organize the files into continuous streams of adjacent data so the drive has the easiest possible time searching the disk.

Hope this info helps.

Answer 3

Depends on several settings:

Paging file size.
Amount of space for System Restore.

These 2 settings make a big difference.
You can look both up in the help section and set them according to what looks best, or let Windows set them for you.

Personally, I use an two external hard drive for huge files; a second internal drive for large frequent-access files, and a medium size Master drive for the OS and Programs.

This way, all my important data is already free from the influence of viruses, and if I DO still manage to get one, I can restore software and drivers only, not lose all my work.

Go here:
http://tigerdirect.com

They always have insane deals on Hard Drives. My latest buy from them is my 250 GIG Seagate HD with a fan-cooled external enclosure. It was only $100 after the rebate.

Beyond new purchases, try to go with those Windows settings, they can help a lot.

Good Luck... :)

Answer 4

Compression of the drive won't effect the computer's operation. You can run disk clean up to give yourself more space. Also remove any windows components that you don't use(themes, accessability options, games, etc.) Then delete any files and programs you don't need or use. Files like videos, photos, and music take up a lot of space so delete any of those you have as well. I wouldn't use up too much more space than you already are. The best option is to purchase an external drive and save your files on there.

Answer 5

Sound like you do not know much about computer, so do not do anything you do not know what would happen next.
You should reserve about 1GB for memory overlap (which is when RAM is not enough, it will borrow your HHD space to load the needed memory. I think 1 GB is more than enough. It means that you can store your files upto 39 GB.
If your computer has one extra slot for a drive, add another 200-300GB HHD, it is about $60-
Hope this will help you.

Answer 6

do not compress i would say invest in an 80 gig hd even if it is an external one and transfer any trans files over to it if your computer messes up like that you need an internal drive put in i would still sugjest about an 80 gig to keep it running correctly

Answer 7

the exterior is performing as a slave force and your carry close, likely C: continues to be low, it really is operating the surely OS. So any updates that favor to be on the community carry close force will deploy to the C: and in no way your slave. you could run disk freshen up and defrag to unencumber some area, also delete previous unused classes. also ascertain that for each element you dodge map to the exterior slave and in no way the carry close.

Answer 8

leave 20% free for a better performance

Answer 9

500mb