A few years ago, it seemed disk space woes were firmly behind us. Desktop drives offered terabytes of storage for almost-pocket-money prices, and even mid-range laptops came with hundreds of gigabytes of capacity.
Yet today many of us are feeling the squeeze. We’re building up ever-larger libraries of photos and movies, and at the same time, PCs and tablets have moved from mechanical drives to faster – but much smaller – solid-state disks. Modern desktop systems tend to come with a secondary mechanical disk for data storage, but compact laptops and tablets simply don’t have the space for a second hard disk. You’re left with as little as 64GB of solid-state storage in total, which in practice leaves very little room for your data.
There are ways to make space, however. On these pages we’ll show you how to squeeze the most out of a small hard disk, find and eliminate unnecessary files, and reduce the amount of space Windows itself demands. You may be surprised at how much space can be freed up with a bit of smart housekeeping.
Before you start to delete files, it’s worth seeing whether you can make more of the capacity of the drive itself. A system that’s been in use for some time could well contain one or more unneeded partitions – perhaps an old Ubuntu installation, or, if you’re using a MacBook, a Boot Camp partition. Such partitions can be easily deleted, and their space reclaimed. Many devices also come with a recovery partition, which you may choose to remove. This isn’t a decision to take lightly, though.
To delete a partition, you’ll want to use the Disk Management console. To find it, search Windows for “Create and format hard disk partitions”: in the window that opens, click on your system disk in the top pane and look at its layout in the bottom pane. If you see an unwanted partition, simply right-click and select “Delete volume…” to remove it. Then, to assimilate the space you’ve just freed up into your main Windows disk, right-click on your system partition, select “Extend volume…” and choose the maximum extension available.
A few caveats are necessary. It goes without saying that before deleting a partition you should make absolutely certain you don’t need its contents. Once you’ve subsumed the space into your main system partition, there’s no easy way to recover the data it contained. We should also point out that all partition operations carry a tiny element of risk: you might want to check your disk for errors before reorganising the partitions, and if you’re using a battery-powered device, make sure it’s connected to the mains power before embarking on any repartitioning tasks.
Yet today many of us are feeling the squeeze. We’re building up ever-larger libraries of photos and movies, and at the same time, PCs and tablets have moved from mechanical drives to faster – but much smaller – solid-state disks. Modern desktop systems tend to come with a secondary mechanical disk for data storage, but compact laptops and tablets simply don’t have the space for a second hard disk. You’re left with as little as 64GB of solid-state storage in total, which in practice leaves very little room for your data.
There are ways to make space, however. On these pages we’ll show you how to squeeze the most out of a small hard disk, find and eliminate unnecessary files, and reduce the amount of space Windows itself demands. You may be surprised at how much space can be freed up with a bit of smart housekeeping.
Before you start to delete files, it’s worth seeing whether you can make more of the capacity of the drive itself. A system that’s been in use for some time could well contain one or more unneeded partitions – perhaps an old Ubuntu installation, or, if you’re using a MacBook, a Boot Camp partition. Such partitions can be easily deleted, and their space reclaimed. Many devices also come with a recovery partition, which you may choose to remove. This isn’t a decision to take lightly, though.
To delete a partition, you’ll want to use the Disk Management console. To find it, search Windows for “Create and format hard disk partitions”: in the window that opens, click on your system disk in the top pane and look at its layout in the bottom pane. If you see an unwanted partition, simply right-click and select “Delete volume…” to remove it. Then, to assimilate the space you’ve just freed up into your main Windows disk, right-click on your system partition, select “Extend volume…” and choose the maximum extension available.
A few caveats are necessary. It goes without saying that before deleting a partition you should make absolutely certain you don’t need its contents. Once you’ve subsumed the space into your main system partition, there’s no easy way to recover the data it contained. We should also point out that all partition operations carry a tiny element of risk: you might want to check your disk for errors before reorganising the partitions, and if you’re using a battery-powered device, make sure it’s connected to the mains power before embarking on any repartitioning tasks.
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