C: Drive too full?

[moon]

Hi,

I am using Windows XP Pro. My hard drive is small, 34.9 GB. Currently 19.6 GB
(or 56%) is free. At approximately what percent of used space will the
computer start suffereing degradation of performance? Thank you.

 

[Mark Adams]

Hi,

I am using Windows XP Pro. My hard drive is small, 34.9 GB. Currently 19.6 GB
(or 56%) is free. At approximately what percent of used space will the
computer start suffereing degradation of performance? Thank you.

You need at least 15% free space in order for Disk Defrag. to work.
Performance problems are usually due to resource hungry applications that you
have running, not how much "stuff" you have on the drive. Use CCleaner to
cleanup temp files, browser history, etc. then defrag your drive to help
performance.

I start thinking about a larger drive when it reaches 25% free space.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am using Windows XP Pro. My hard drive is small, 34.9 GB. Currently 19.6 GB
(or 56%) is free. At approximately what percent of used space will the
computer start suffereing degradation of performance? Thank you.

Two points:

1. How much free space you have affects what you can put on the drive,
and in some cases whether a particular program (defrag, for example)
will run at all. Unless the amount gets extremely low, it really
doesn't affect performance.

2. 18.6GB is a small enough amount that you may find it will hamper
what you can do in the near future. If I were in your shoes, I would
replace your drive, or add a second one, so as not to have to worry
about this in the future. Fortunately, hard drives are very
inexpensive right now. You can buy a 160GB drive for under $60 US.