My Windows 10 PC's hard drive used space value keeps fluctuating up and down by as much as 5 GB per month (approximately), even though I'm not adding nor deleting programs. I keep an eye on this Hard Drive Used Space on my C:Drive every day, and I'm suspicious about who or what is causing the up and down change in the "Used Space." Can anyone who has knowledgeable insight about this issue explain the reason for this Hard Drive "Used Space" variation by so many gigabytes? Thank you.
Hi md rich
How big is the C: drive? Are you talking of a desktop machine with "massive" HDDs or something compact like a laptop/hybrid/tablet with just a few GB (My ASUS T200 hybrid has 64GB which is plenty since I do not need things like OFFICE on it)?
Unless you think this fluctuation is adversely affecting the performance -- like if you only had a few GB free space on the drive -- then I would not worry about it. Windows does not like users micro-manipulating it so it really is best to leave it alone.
If you really need to dig into it then consider that some applications -- Google Earth is a classic example -- can leave behind temporary files that are enormous. You can see this if you run CCleaner, a free and reputable utility, in analyze mode and see how much it shows you can free up if you run its Delete operation.
You could also get fluctuations if you have any other utility running that carries out similar clean ups (Windows has one built in or they can come as part of other applications like Security programs including Norton.
And Windows 10 does a lot in the background without asking you, like updates in Windows 10 itself.
So as I say I would not worry about this kind of thing and drop
I keep an eye on this Hard Drive Used Space on my C:Drive every day,
You may like to check out this relatively recent article although it is headed 100% disk usage error:
http://www.techbout.com/fix-100-disk-usage-error-windows-10-5549/
since it touches on specific parts of the Windows 10 system that can cause big fluctuations what you can try doing.
But let us know some more about your system if you think we can help more and especially if you do find specific, fixable cause.
Hello md rich There are a couple of reasons this could be happening. A rogue program could be causing it or just system settings. System restore could also have an impact on the free space as it deletes and creates new restore points on a regular basis. I have placed a couple of Microsoft links that will assist. Hope this helps clean up your issues. Cheers!!
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-my/default.htm?mkt=en-my