It’s seems almost incomprehensible that hard disks measuring in the hundreds of gigabytes range can quickly become filled to the brim. But as disks get larger, so too do the programs and file sizes. In fact, downloading a few high resolution images and short video files can quickly take up huge chunks of hard drive real estate. Before you know it, your disk is nearing its capacity.
Signs of a Full Hard Disk
You’ve probably already experienced the symptoms of a nearly full hard disk including sluggish performance, computer errors, data access errors, file save errors, failed downloads, failed software installations, and other undesirable symptoms.
Checking Free Space
In addition to these clues, and errors that flat out tell you that your disk is running low on space, you can also check your computer’s disk to see just how much free space remains. The easiest way to do this is by going to My Computer (or Computer if you have Windows Vista) and finding your hard disk in the display. Depending on your operating system, you may have to right-click the drive and choose Properties before you can see how much hard drive space is left. In Windows Vista, you’ll immediately see a graphical bar icon representing how much disk space has been used and how much remains along with a text description such as, “57.9 GB free of 147 GB.”
How to Free up Disk Space
You have several steps that you can do to free up disk space. First, use the built-in Disk Cleanup utility to clear out your temporary files, temporary Internet files, offline Web pages, log files, Recycle Bin files, and other unnecessary files taking up space. This utility is located in the Start button under Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Disk Cleanup. Select the file types to remove and view the display of how much disk space you will recover before clicking OK.
If you need to free more space, click on the More Options tab and click the Clean Up button next to Programs and Features. This takes you to the Control Panel’s Programs and Features utility (in Vista) or Add and Remove Programs utility (in Windows XP). From here, you can remove programs that you no longer need or desire.
For even more space recovery, click the link for turning Windows Features on or off. Many of Windows features take up huge amounts of disk space, and if you don’t actively use the feature, can be safely turned off. For example, if you don’t play games, you can turn off all of those Windows games like Solitaire and free up disk space.
Remove Data
Another option is to remove data. Of course, you’ll want to use care. Go through and see if you’re storing huge files that you don’t really need. For example, if you downloaded and saved a huge real estate brochure while house hunting three years ago, do you still need it? If not, get rid of it.
Photos and videos are huge files. Consider burning your digital photos to disc, uploading them to a photo hosting or online storage site, or even storing your digital photos on an external hard drive or USB stick rather than your primary hard drive. If you edit your home videos, once you are done editing, burn your finished video to a DVD, create a backup copy, double check that the DVD works properly, and then delete the source and edited videos from your computer.
These tips should help you recover quite a bit of disk space. If your hard disk consistently fills up after doing these steps, you may want to consider other solutions such as an external hard drive or using an online storage site to store data.
