Can A Fresh OS Take Less Space?

[Mike Soda]

While downloading Elder Scrolls Online I noticed that my 250GB Smasung 850 EVO only has 95GB free. I'm almost positive it was well over 100GB a few months ago or last year. So I'm wondering if the 137GB used is from countless fall or spring creators updates stacked on top of one another. If I did a clean install of Windows 10 Home 64-bit using either the USB stick I bought, after all updates were said & done would it free up 5, 10 or even more GB of space? My personal files only take up 3GB & buying a 120 or 500 something GB secondary SSD isn't an option until maybe next year.

[Br3tt96]

1 minute ago, Mike Soda said:

While downloading Elder Scrolls Online I noticed that my 250GB Smasung 850 EVO only has 95GB free. I'm almost positive it was well over 100GB a few months ago or last year. So I'm wondering if the 137GB used is from countless fall or spring creators updates stacked on top of one another. If I did a clean install of Windows 10 Home 64-bit using either the USB stick I bought, after all updates were said & done would it free up 5, 10 or even more GB of space? My personal files only take up 3GB & buying a 120 or 500 something GB secondary SSD isn't an option until maybe next year.

Windows stacks updates, so it'll keep filling.

[Firewrath9]

6 minutes ago, Mike Soda said:

While downloading Elder Scrolls Online I noticed that my 250GB Smasung 850 EVO only has 95GB free. I'm almost positive it was well over 100GB a few months ago or last year. So I'm wondering if the 137GB used is from countless fall or spring creators updates stacked on top of one another. If I did a clean install of Windows 10 Home 64-bit using either the USB stick I bought, after all updates were said & done would it free up 5, 10 or even more GB of space? My personal files only take up 3GB & buying a 120 or 500 something GB secondary SSD isn't an option until maybe next year.

maybe you should get a storage drive barracuda 2Tb for 60$. or a 1TB for 40.

[rcmaehl]

Just now, Firewrath9 said:

maybe you should get a storage drive barracuda 2Tb for 60$..

 

8TB for $140

[Firewrath9]

Just now, rcmaehl said:

8TB for $140

dont see any new 8TB drives for under 200$ on PCPP:

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#sort=price&page=1&S=7800000,15360000

also what if he doesnt want to dish out 200$ for space for a couple games.

[rcmaehl]

2 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

dont see any new 8TB drives for under 200$ on PCPP:

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#sort=price&page=1&S=7800000,15360000

 

also what if he doesnt want to dish out 200$ for space for a couple games.

That's because they're external drives

WD EasyStore

Seagate Backup Plus

 

All of which are just regular 3.5" drives in USB 3.0 enclosures.

[Mike Soda]

9 minutes ago, Br3tt96 said:

Windows stacks updates, so it'll keep filling.

 

8 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

maybe you should get a storage drive barracuda 2Tb for 60$. or a 1TB for 40.

 

7 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

8TB for $140

 

5 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

dont see any new 8TB drives for under 200$ on PCPP:

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#sort=price&page=1&S=7800000,15360000

also what if he doesnt want to dish out 200$ for space for a couple games.

Thank you all, right now I couldn't dish out $10 for a 1TB SSD even if someone gave me that good of a deal. Good to know I don't ever need to seasonally waste my time reinstalling my OS. Is it a bad idea to only have 10GB or less free space for future Windows Updates? If so I'll cancel the ESO download now.

[rcmaehl]

You can enable disk compression and compress everything which should give you a bit of space at the cost of performance. Otherwise a complete install, keeping no files will save some space, assuming you've never cleaned temporary files or uninstalled a program.

[Electronics Wizardy]

use a program like space sniffer to see what is using the space, there is probably some things you can delete.

4 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

You can enable disk compression and compress everything which should give you a bit of space at the cost of performance. Otherwise a complete install, keeping no files will save some space, assuming you've never cleaned temporary files or uninstalled a program.

compress can actuall speed things up often as the cpu can compress and decompress the data faster than the drive can read it

[Mike Soda]

9 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

You can enable disk compression and compress everything which should give you a bit of space at the cost of performance. Otherwise a complete install, keeping no files will save some space, assuming you've never cleaned temporary files or uninstalled a program.

 

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

use a program like space sniffer to see what is using the space, there is probably some things you can delete.

compress can actuall speed things up often as the cpu can compress and decompress the data faster than the drive can read it

I'll just let the game finish downloading over the next couple days. Try it out & play for a week or 2 then uninstall it, a waste of time I know but I need to know if I even like the game before I shell out $100 on a 500GB SSD sometime next year. Kinda wish I didn't have to try it at all but things happened.

[DimasRMDO]

You can actually delete system restore point or if you use disk cleanup and perform "Clean up system files" you can also do Windows update cleanup. They can take a lot of space.

Beware though if you delete these you cannot go back to previous version or restore point if something goes wrong in the future (you can still make restore point, but you can't go back to previous version of Windows in case of new version of Windows is broken.

[Mike Soda]

2 hours ago, DimasRMDO said:

You can actually delete system restore point or if you use disk cleanup and perform "Clean up system files" you can also do Windows update cleanup. They can take a lot of space.

Beware though if you delete these you cannot go back to previous version or restore point if something goes wrong in the future (you can still make restore point, but you can't go back to previous version of Windows in case of new version of Windows is broken.

I'm not sure how many system restore points I have but I'll check, thanks.