Why does the free space on my primary drive vary after every reboot?

Myke46 October 17, 2010
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Why does the amount of free space on my primary drive (C:\) vary from 5 to 7 GB every time I boot my laptop? And it does this regardless of type of activity, I could just use my browser and it changes.

  1. Mike
    October 18, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    There are various reasons why free space is fluctuating. 1-2GB difference sounds somewhat normal to me depending on your usage. For Example:

    ~ browser cache
    whenever you visit a page or some software is using the browser engine cache files will be stored, visiting ~10 sites (e.g. blogs, tech sites, etc) can easily result in a 300MB cache... depending on your browser and setting this cache is cleared after a certain time like 1 week or maybe as soon as you close the browser

    ~ pagefile
    if you haven't configured it yourself the Windows pagefile will increase in size when it's utilization is high

    ~ restore points
    depending on your settings Windows will create a system restore point whenever you install some software or Windows Update, one restore point might take several hundred megabytes up to over 1GB in space, also those points are not created instantaneous, when you are using your system the entire time it might take up to several hours before the restore point is created and reached it's full size

    ~ temporary files created by Windows/Software which are deleted at certain times
    ~ cleaning software e.g. CCleaner which deleted temporary files

    • Myke46
      October 30, 2010 at 6:32 am

      Mike,here's the kicker-I clean my computer on a regular basis with Ccleaner(+Ninja),I also use Advanced System Care Pro,and some others from time to time.After I clean it,it usually decreases (the amount of free space)by 5GB or more.I have plenty of space available I just want it to read properly for the day that it becomes an issue.

  2. Anonymous
    October 18, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    try to reset explorer view

    alternatively uninstal sp1/sp2 and reinstal

  3. Tina
    October 17, 2010 at 7:27 pm

    Myke, what operating system are you using?Assuming it's Windows, how do you shut down your laptop? Do you you hibernate, go in standby, or do you shut it down properly? Maybe the variation in free space is due to the amount of space your operating system is using on your hard drive, e.g. for extra memory.Does it also happen when you reboot, i.e. shut down your laptop completely and boot again? In that case I'm clueless and would have to do more research.

    • Myke46
      October 18, 2010 at 12:37 am

      Tina, I have Vista Basic and this happens no matter how I shut it down.I very rarely use hibernate,it's either sleep or a proper boot.