Will stopping VSS give me back the lost 100 gbs ?

Over several weeks, using Defraggler on a 30% fragmented TB hdd about 60% full, I've lost over 100 GBs of freespace, while adding less than 5GB of new data.

I saw the pinned entry about stopping VSS, but will this free up the storage I've lost using Defraggler.

My worst case is to buy another drive, transfer the data, and wipe my current drive, but I'd rather avoid that for a bit.

100 GB is a LOT of freespace to lose, though.

Stopping VSS prevents Windows from increasing the size of shadow copies during defrag.

To reclaim some of your lost space, in CCleaner \ Tools\ System Restore . . hilite and remove some oldies.

What Windows version

Thanks. I'll try the ccleaner option. Windows 7 Home Premium.

Then yes as Kroozer said

Update: I was using 501, not the latest, but I did check old restores, just a couple, which, when removed made no appreciable difference. Updating to 505 made no difference.

VSS is not an option on the Defraggler advanced menu. What is a "shadow" and how does it get gone?

More info:

This TB drive is a non-system, data only, external drive.

I have, now, several huge System Volume Information files, that's where the 100+ GB of storage seems to have gone. These are system, and so not deletable, files.

Just for the heck of it, I tried defragmenting freespace, and it made a hash of previously defragmented files, which had then to be redefragmented, and in that process I lost quite a few more GB! I thought defragmenting freespace would leave everything unfragmented and just sort of bump it closer together, so I'd have a more contiguous freespace area. Not so. A warning about that would be a nice feature. Also, I stopped the process mid way, when the time remaining said 23 hours to go! Maybe Defrag was going to re-defragment the moved re-fragmented files on its own eventually.

I can't say I understand defragmenting, but it doesn't make sense to lose such a huge amount of storage from just defragmenting the data on the drive.

What is happeneing, that Defraggler is gobbling up so much of my freespace, when no additional files are being added to this drive? Is there some W7 issue, about the way it tracks changes to a drive? In other words, is it Defraggler that's doing this, or W7 based on what Defraggler has done? If so, is there a fix?

Incidentally, is there a way to prevent files from fragmenting so much when they're being moved to this external storage. Any ideas?

I tried defragmenting freespace. I stopped the process mid way

i have read in another fred, that you should not interrupt the defragmentation of free space. the GB of data will dissolve afterwards. (I think Defraggler submit those data sets to ...)

I have, now, several huge System Volume Information files, that's where the 100+ GB of storage seems to have gone. These are system, and so not deletable, files.

otherwise you dont get your disk space back, how kroozer said.

the most recent restore point is calmly anyway

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=43435

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=43332

perhaps it helps

Press Start and right-clicking on Computer and select Properties.

Select System Protection link on the left-hand side of page.

Is protection on for your external drive?

I will check out Disk Cleanup.

On the stopping freespace defrag point, I can say that, after starting that process, it took quite a while for Defraggler to actually post an estimated time for the procedure, and it came back with less than four hours. I left the machine to its own business, and, returning more than eight hours later, saw that the freespace defrag was far from complete and now said 23 hours to go.

That kind of uncertainty-- from 4 hours to twenty-three with an eight hour space between-- doesn't inspire confidence in the software. Seeing also that I had significantly less freespace available than when the process started, and newly frgamented files all over the place, the only sensible course, to me, was to stop Defraggler.

Can't really see any sense in just leaving it run, no telling for how long past 23 more hours... or how much more freespace I might lose in that time.

It would be very useful to users if advisory windows turned up in cases where the defrag shouldn't be stopped. That first.

Next, there is some major issue with time calculation... I'd surely call that a bug.

- I wouldn't be too worried. When Windows detects that disk space is becoming scarce then Windows will automatically delete one or more of those System Restore Points (SRPs).

- I also know that when e.g. the C: drive can't contain any SRPs any more then Windows will store the next SRP on the next drive (e.g. D:, E:) provided System Restore is enabled for those drives as well.

- Some programs simply apply a "quick & dirty" approach when it comes to storing files on a disk (i.e. leave the files defragmented) instead of finding a free space large enough to store a file in one piece.

- Choose a "lowel level" of System Restore ("Only restore previous file versions" or something along those lines) and install Tweaking's Registry Backup. About 95% of system settings are stored in the registry.

- Time calculating: It gives an estimate of the time. I think it should be removed but the Piriform developers seem to have different thoughts.

Is protection on for your external drive?

@ edd -take a look there

1635fe-1431180921.jpg

e3fa29-1431181058.jpg

the protection of an external drive is redundanz of your data - one of your system and one of your external harddisk --> dataprotection of your harddisk is twice redundanz. (actually unneseccary --> normally you do not need System Restore points for an external drive)

For my case (private person), think it is enough if you have a system monitoring/system protection only for the master drive (system drive) enabled.

--> pic 1 --> c: "on"

--> pic 2 --> you can determine the size of which is to protect available on your harddisk.

that's just my personal choice!

Thank you, everyone, for your advice and suggestions.

I did find the VSS checkbox, and turned it off, and then ran W7 Disk Cleanup.

Voila! I got all my disk freespace back, over 100 gb's.

Such a relief. All that data storage available again, and knowing a little better how to actually use the computer I use so much.

I really appreciate the forum's support.