A lot of Windows 8 (and 8.1) devices uses SSD. While SSD promises a significantly faster access time, it comes with one major limitation: storage space. Yes, SSD is generally more expensive than traditional HDD, so most of new products using SSD have limited storage capacity. Some Windows tablets come with 32GB or 64GB internal storage. 32GB storage is barely enough just for Windows and Ms Office, leaving very little space to install anything else. Yes we probably can use memory card for expansion, I personally never like the idea of using memory card to store anything other than data (not applications).
These tips for saving extra drive space is tested in Windows 8.1. Most of them should also work in Windows 8.
1. Delete unnecessary files
Of course the first step is to delete unnecessary files from our computer. Especially files with larger size. Large files that are usually responsible for taking up much valuable storage space are movie files, music, high-res photos, etc. If you still need those files in the future, don’t forget to copy it somewhere else before deleting. If your device can read files from external storage (external HDD, USB thumb or memory card), you might want to consider storing your large files there instead of inside main storage.
2. Disk Clean-up
You can use Disk Clean-up to delete files that are safe to delete. Usually temporary files, unnecessary log files, cache and other types of “safe” files. If you want, you can also click the Clean up system files button in Disk Cleanup dialog. This will delete previous Windows installations, Windows Defender files, and Windows upgrade log files that we might no longer need. You can even save more space by clicking on More Options tab and clean up System Restores and Shadow Copies. This will delete all but the most recent restore point. More Options tab will appear after we click on Clean up system files button.
3. Disable Page file
You can disable Page file. This will prevent Windows from writing to SSD or HDD when the RAM is not enough. This might save few GBs of space. However, if we disable Page file, if we run out of memory, our program will crash immediately.
+ Open Windows Explorer, find This PC item, right click and choose Properties. A new window will appear.
+ Choose Advanced System Settings.
+ Choose Advanced tab.
+ Click the Settings button in Performance.
+ Choose Advanced tab.
+ Click the Change button in Virtual Memory.
+ Uncheck Automatically manage paging file sizes for all drives.
+ Choose No paging file. Click the Set button, then press OK.
+ Restart your computer.
If you want to play a bit safer, choose Custom size instead of No paging file and put 250MB for both initial and maximum sizes.
4. Maintenance
It is important to give our machine some regular maintenance. One way to do this is using Defragment and Optimize Drives tool provided by Windows. Traditional HDD needs defragment feature to be performed regularly. SSD storage does not need defragmentation. Instead, Windows can use the TRIM command to optimize the storage usage in SSD.
Some people reported that their Optimize button is disabled by Windows. I still don’t know what is the cause of the disabled button, but I found a workaround to do “maintenance”. Open Action Center and click the drop-down button next to Maintenance. Click the Start maintenance link in Automatic Maintenance section, and it should perform some steps similar to optimization.
5. Disable System Restore
If you want, you can disable system restore. This will save storage up to few GB. There is a risk in doing this step, if a driver installation corrupts our system, we can’t use automatic recovery.
+ Open Windows Explorer, find This PC item, right click and choose Properties. A new window will appear.
+ Choose Advanced System Settings.
+ Choose System Protection tab.
+ Click Configure button.
+ Choose Disable system protection.
+ Click on Delete button, then press OK.
6. Disable Hibernate
This will save up to 1 GB of free space. However, if we disable hibernate then the quick booting and quick shutdown will no longer available.
+ Open Command Prompt (cmd) window as Administrator.
+ Type powercfg -h off and press Enter.
+ To enable it again, type powercfg -h on instead.
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