HDD or SSD getting full?

[ricktas]

I had an issue where my 120GB SSD drive was getting quite full, and I could not work out why. It basically has my OS, and programmes on it, and no user data (as such) is stored on the SSD, but rather on my 1tb internal HDD instead.

After some googling I came across this nifty bit of software : WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/) which is free to download and it does a directory (folder) tree search of your chosen drives and shows you where the space is being taken up.

I ran it and found 37gb of video files on my SSD, using WinDirStat I followed the path to discover that Nero (even though i had told it NOT to retain a copy) had stored copies of video files I had copied to disks. Even though the original video files were on my 1TB HDD, Nero had made copies on the SSD as well, so using WinDirStat, I deleted those folders and suddenly my free space returned to where I thought it should have been

So thought I would share this wonderful little program with everyone here on AP. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Lance B]

Thank you for the info, Rick. Having just upgraded to a 120Gb SSD and using 3 x 2Tb HDD in a RAID Array, this is timely information.

[kaiser]

Guys have you noticed much of a speed/responsiveness increase in the SSD's compared to normal HDDs when using LR and Photoshop?

[JM Tran]

Guys have you noticed much of a speed/responsiveness increase in the SSD's compared to normal HDDs when using LR and Photoshop?


much, much faster than 5400rpm and 7200rpm HDDs. For editing I usually put my RAW files on the SSD and access them from there for faster loading/processing time than loading them from back up drives.

for example, on a 1.5 yr old Macbook Pro - I can go from a cold start to having LR3 open with RAWs ready for editing in about 16 seconds.


using SSD's for 2 yrs now and will never go back to HDDs - and I only use them for data storage and back up/redundancy of previous work.

[ameerat42]

Ta Rick. It looks dazzling, and the Pacmen gave me a laugh.

[Cage]

:violent10::violent10: Nero, from personal experience, has a habit of not always doing what it is told.

I showed it the Recycle Bin years ago.

[ricktas]

Guys have you noticed much of a speed/responsiveness increase in the SSD's compared to normal HDDs when using LR and Photoshop?

In a word..HEAPS! SSD's excel at read speeds and the ideal is to place all your frequently used programs and OS on the SSD and then put all your files (documents, music, photos) etc on a regular HDD. Start up times for things like PS is significantly faster from an SSD.

[Cage]

Rick, I've been considering a set up the same as yours. Just O/S and programs on the SSD, and storage on my 2 500GB hard drives.

Don't know anything about SSD's, ie what's hot and what's not. Any clues would be helpful.

[ricktas]

Ive got an OCZ : http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-agility-3-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html

[agb]

Thank Ric, but how do I decide what to do when I have found for instance that one of my hard drives has 72GB of photoshop temp files, and its a hard drive that I no longer use to run photoshop having cloned it to a new C drive, do I just deleted them and reclaim the space?

[ricktas]

Thank Ric, but how do I decide what to do when I have found for instance that one of my hard drives has 72GB of photoshop temp files, and its a hard drive that I no longer use to run photoshop having cloned it to a new C drive, do I just deleted them and reclaim the space?

yes. delete them within the WinDirStat program, it will ask if you want to put then in the recycle bin, or trash completely.

[kaiser]

Thanks guys- something for me to consider when I upgrade my Mac :)

[Invictus]

After some googling I came across this nifty bit of software : WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/) which is free to download and it does a directory (folder) tree search of your chosen drives and shows you where the space is being taken up.

So thought I would share this wonderful little program with everyone here on AP. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

There is also a version for PortableApps (http://portableapps.com)( Link: http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/windirstat_portable ), which is handy for ... portability.
An alternative to WinDirStats is TreeSize (http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/)

[Lance B]

Just backing up Ricks assertion with regards to the SSD's being quick. My SSD set up is super fast, it's quite amazing how fast programs load and how quickly things are accomplished.

[redhead65]

I would recommend using an SSD for one's boot drive and for regularly used files but not for long term data storage. Thus you don't necessarily need a large SSD and a large amount of money to make a significant speed difference to your PC / MAC. It helps though to have a recent OS that supports SSD TRIM commands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM . An older Lenovo T61 laptop running Windows Vista at my office for example shows almost no performance benefit from having a SSD installed over the original HDD.