SSD - Windows reporting more space used than Windirstat

[EN32]

Hey guys. I'm using a 120GB SSD, on My Computer it shows it's maximum size as 111GB, it's getting kinda full so I ran WinDirStat to see what is taking up space. It shows that it only has 71GB of Data on it but Windows Explorer says it's full (0.5 GB remaining) . What's going on here?

[DaveLembke]

If this is drive C: and you have 16GB RAM, then your swap file is eating up 24GB of it maybe. What is your hardware specs for this computer? Guessing you have emptied the recycle bin.

[EN32]

I have 8GB of RAM.

Intel i5-3570k
GTX 560Ti Video card
Windows 8 64-bit Ultimate
120GB Sandisk Extreme SSD
1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD

Think that's all that matters.
I've cleared everything that appears clearable (including Recycle Bin) using Windirstat:
Program Files is 35GB
Windows is 24.4GB
User files is 4GB

Other than those everything else is a negligible size totalling 70.5GB so I don't see where the other 40GB is coming from

[patio]

Here's your real usable space...take that into consideration...

[EN32]

So 70.5GB / 111GB, something is still amiss.

[patio]

System Restore...

[EN32]

I've cleaned all the system restores using Disk Cleanup

[Calum]

Hibernation is probably enabled, which will use 8GB (same as your installed RAM).
Go to start - run - type cmd - press enter - type "powercfg -h off" without the quotes, and hit enter.  Should save you 8GB.
Also as above check your page file size, usually ends up around your installed memory size if it's on auto.

[BC_Programmer]

WindirStat cannot access the pagefile to query it's size nor any files within the "System Volume Information" folder. I'm not sure if it cannot access the Hibernation file.

Anyway, the discrepancy is that Windows is basing the numbers on the amount of free space the drive reports, whereas WinDirStat is totalling the size of all the files it is able to access. Thus, Windirstat's total will not include files it cannot access.

[EN32]

I've moved the page file to my other hard drive and disabled the hibernation file. I'm really not sure what could be taking up 40GB still...

[DaveLembke]

Other than that, I have heard that SSD's shrink when they start to die. But I doubt that this is the issue. I haven't seen a SSD die yet with cell damage in which it has shrunken like is stated all over the web for SSDs as they age and memory cells die.

And my SSD on my system I use for gaming as well as my swap space so it gets lots of use, yet its been running for 11 months and the capacity has not shrunk yet by even a bit from its original capacity that I wrote down when I installed it in June 2012.

I have 3 SSD's, one in my gaming system, 1 in my wifes system for gaming, and 1 in my netbook to make the 1.66Ghz Atom CPU seem faster as well as extend the battery life by almost another 1.5 hrs.

[Calum]

Even if the SSD's usable space were to shrink (and for an SSD to wear out its NAND before some other failure would be very unusual, and IMO only possible in extreme or simulated load circumstances) I don't believe it would report its capacity any differently, although I could be wrong.
1.5 hours additional battery life from an SSD is incredible, I've normally seen 15 minutes at best.  Must've been something funky going on with the HDD there.

Can't help any further with the OP's question, though - if hibernation and the page file aren't on the drive (page file should be on the SSD for best performance, by the way) then I'm not sure what Windirstat isn't seeing.

[DaveLembke]

1.5 hours additional battery life from an SSD is incredible, I've normally seen 15 minutes at best.  Must've been something funky going on with the HDD there.

Before the SSD was installed to make this netbook run as fast as possible, I told the HDD never to sleep in power options. By default I think it was to put the hard drive to sleep after 3 minutes. Waiting for 5400rpm drive to spin up and the slow atom processor to play catch up was an annoyance, so I set it to never put the HDD to sleep. When I installed the SSD which is way more power efficient there was no need to adjust the sleep for drive, and I left it set to never. So battery life increased from 7.5 hrs use on a full charge to around 9 hrs before I am below 10%.

The mini NB205-N210 Netbook Computer from Toshiba is a compact netbook computer with a 10.1" LED Backlit LCD display. The 2.9 pound system is extremely compact, and features 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, a built-in webcam, and a spacious 160GB hard drive. The computer's 6-cell battery provides an outstanding 9 hours of runtime.

The only way to get 9 hrs before was to lag out (slowdown/sleep) the performance of this netbook with its original HDD. To make the netbook fast to respond and usable for my needs the battery life was running around 6.5 to 7.5 hrs on a full charge. With the SSD this netbook is more responsive and has lasted up to 1.5 hrs longer. I am actually able to get better performance and closer to the 9 hr advertised runtime per charge.  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/649611-REG/Toshiba_PLL25U_009018_mini_NB205_N210_Netbook_Computer.html

[patio]

I just re-read your Post above...
You state it's a 120G HDD and it's at 111G...
I don't exactly see 40G missing...

That being stated i think BC's post above explains it all.

[BrassMonkey]

If you re-read the post again you may see that the 40GB was the difference between 111GB disk size and 71GB data reported.