I've been running defraggler over several sessions when not using my PC. I have a 1 TB drive. Tonight, I noticed free space increased dramatically, by 20 GB or more. Is this normal, or did Defraggler damage/destroy some files on me?
I've been running defraggler over several sessions when not using my PC. I have a 1 TB drive. Tonight, I noticed free space increased dramatically, by 20 GB or more. Is this normal, or did Defraggler damage/destroy some files on me?
Hi Grenadier,
Welcome to the forums !!!
Using a product like Defraggler is one of the few times that most users even notice what is happening with the space on their hard drives.
You will see changes like this, especially if you are using Vista. This is normal. It is also normal to see a decrease in free space also.
This is due to Vista using and releasing space in regards to System Restore processes and Shadow Copies.
I would recommend not using any 3rd party software on Vista at system startup also.
davey
Well, the reason I asked was because free space had been pretty stable, across multiple sessions. Then there's this sudden increase in free space. Makes me wonder what got nuked to account for it. Seems like an awfully huge amount for swap file or system restore to account for.
I understand what you mean. High-end Vista editions will create and release a lot of large System Restore related files. Vista high-end editions backup a lot more and allow for much more successful restores than XP ever could. With 1 TB I imagine that you have a top class edition of Vista.
It depends on what things that you may have been doing at the time or even a for awhile beforehand.
Let us know if you do discover a problem but I haven't heard of any like you describe. Of course you could be the first report. We do appreciate your taking the time to do so. davey
Windows Vista by default sets the maximum size for shadow copies and system restore points to be 15% of drive size or 30% of free space (which ever is smaller),
That means on a 1tb drive up to 150gb can be used by default and normally close to that figure is actually used,
So lossing only one restore point can easily be 20gb
I actually had a similar situation occur with massive amounts of space seeming to randomly appear. Just like davey said though, I also noticed my system restore points being deleted. I had no idea they took up that much space.