Troubleshoot "Dynamically" changing amount of free space on the SSD drive

[IceMan7]

Briefly explain your current issue(s)

Off topic, missing.

Steps taken to resolve, but have been unsuccessful

No

Your current Antivirus

ESSP

I never paid attention to it. Maybe it was always like that.
My free space on my C SSD drive changes. Every day. Today I turned on my computer, I had 59.4 GB of free space. Now, as I write this post, I have 57.5 GB free.
System clean. I scanned almost everything from second opinion.
Is it normal for an SSD drive to smoothly change free space on the drive? Some indexing? Is it buffering some data somewhere?
Or maybe I have some setting turned on or off?

 

[Bot]

It's normal for SSD free space to fluctuate due to temporary files, system updates, and cache data. You can use Disk Cleanup tool to remove unnecessary files. If the changes are significant, consider using a disk space analyzer to identify large files or folders.

 

[IceMan7]

But that much? Sometimes it can take up to 5GB of free space during work.

What should I do to limit it? Or is it impossible?

 

[Victor M]

Browser tabs each loading a web site could take up a lot, some people have 20-40 tabs open at once. For example, my .mozilla directory holding the cached web pages total 72MB for 14 tab pages. Then all the other apps may take up some space with their work files/temp files. Space used varies with each app of course. A good tool to see is Treesize. Take a look when all apps are closed and take another look with everything open.

 

[IceMan7]

My free space on my C SSD drive changes. Every day. Today I turned on my computer, I had 59.4 GB of free space. Now, as I write this post, I have 57.5 GB free.

I turned off my computer and went for a walk with my dog. I came back and turned it back on. After turning it on, it didn't go back to 59.4GB. Now I have 57.1GB. Is this normal?
SSD refreshes (releases) data so slowly?

 

[Victor M]

SSD refreshes (releases) data so slowly

SSD themselves do not <release> space. Its up to each program to delete the temporary/work files they use.

You may have a program that downloads a big database from work or somewhere, and just like that, your space will be used up.

 

[Victor M]

The program TreeSize gives you a bar chart showing the space used by each folder. And you can drill down to see the space used up by each file inside.

No need to guess whether it is indexing or caching or this or that. TreeSize lets you see EXACTLY where your space has gone to.

 

[roger_m]

But that much? Sometimes it can take up to 5GB of free space during work.

5GB of storage space is very little these days. It's normal behaviour and nothing to be concerned about.

 

[IceMan7]

The program TreeSize gives you a bar chart showing the space used by each folder. And you can drill down to see the space used up by each file inside.

Thanks. I'll install it and see what's changing my disk space.

 

[SeriousHoax]

The program TreeSize gives you a bar chart showing the space used by each folder. And you can drill down to see the space used up by each file inside.

A better and faster alternative is WizTree:

WizTree - The Fastest Disk Space Analyzer

Official WizTree web site. WizTree is the fastest disk space analyzer available for Windows. It reads the Master File Table (MFT) directly from the disk, bypassing Windows and gaining a huge performance boost.

diskanalyzer.com

Edit: I never used TreeSize, I don't know how good it is. I got it confused with the WinDirStat program. WizTree is a better alternative to WinDirStat.

 

[IceMan7]

The program TreeSize gives you a bar chart showing the space used by each folder. And you can drill down to see the space used up by each file inside.

A better and faster alternative is WizTree:

I tried both programs. And I like WizTree better. It's clearer for me and has what I was looking for.

Anyway. Interesting fact. When I had Eset installed, the amount of free space on the SSD changed a lot. In one day, it could even decrease by 5GB. Now, when I have Bitdefender installed, the change in space is only 200-300MB and returns very quickly.
I don't know why. I can't explain it. Eset bug? Maybe its scan is buffering something in the background? In any case, with Eset Program Data, Windows was constantly changing the size on the disk.

 

[SeriousHoax]

I tried both programs. And I like WizTree better. It's clearer for me and has what I was looking for.

Anyway. Interesting fact. When I had Eset installed, the amount of free space on the SSD changed a lot. In one day, it could even decrease by 5GB. Now, when I have Bitdefender installed, the change in space is only 200-300MB and returns very quickly.
I don't know why. I can't explain it. Eset bug? Maybe its scan is buffering something in the background? In any case, with Eset Program Data, Windows was constantly changing the size on the disk.

I can't say for sure, but it could be down to this option in ESET though 5 GB seems too extreme. It is enabled by default, but I have always used it by disabling this option. Next time you use ESET, disable this.

Bitdefender installed, the change in space is only 200-300MB and returns very quickly.

You may notice more than 200-300 MB difference at least once a day. Bitdefender seems to update their engine or whatever (I'm not sure if engine is the correct word but something of that nature) at least once a day. When it happens, Bitdefender's size is increased by a decent amount (500 MB or more). They keep a backup of the previous engine and it's deleted only after a system restart. So, size will restore back to normal after a system restart. Same happens for Avast the last time I checked.

 

[IceMan7]

I can't say for sure, but it could be down to this option in ESET though 5 GB seems too extreme. It is enabled by default, but I have always used it by disabling this option. Next time you use ESET, disable this.

Maybe you're right. I don't remember now if I had that option checked.

I don't know if I'll check again. BD starts to communicate with my computer after a whole day and it's fine. Better than I expected. We'll see how it goes.

Yes. I already wrote above, even about 5GB was running out. What's worse, less and less every day and it never returned to the starting point. Only that less and less every day and it wasn't 5GB every day. But there was less and less free space every day.

You may notice more than 200-300 MB difference at least once a day.

Today I didn't notice more. After restarting it always comes back about 100MB or 200MB.
If after restarting it comes back because BD has to reload, then there's nothing to worry about. And in this respect there is a big improvement and a better situation than I had with Eset.

 

[IceMan7]

You may notice more than 200-300 MB difference at least once a day. Bitdefender seems to update their engine or whatever (I'm not sure if engine is the correct word but something of that nature) at least once a day. When it happens, Bitdefender's size is increased by a decent amount (500 MB or more). They keep a backup of the previous engine and it's deleted only after a system restart. So, size will restore back to normal after a system restart. Same happens for Avast the last time I checked.

I just had an update. The 200-300MB today is a change due to computer use. System, Firefox, etc. And now there was an update. You were right. BD from 2.3GB on the disk became 2.8 on the disk. So we have 500MB overwritten You are a genius
Restarting for now did not help to remove this "buffer". I'll see tomorrow if it's back to 2.3GB when Bitdefender digests it.

PS
There are not as many updates as in Eset per day. It is clear that BD relies mainly on ATD and not signatures.

EDIT
Turning the computer off and on again - 500MB of free space returned