You have great pictures or articles to saved on your laptop or computer only to receive a message your hard drive is full! You spend some time deleting documents, photos, emails or folders you no longer need however it doesn’t free up as much space as you had hoped.
Disappearing storage space is a common issue. Somehow, no matter how much storage space we have, it never is enough. You can always upgrade your hard drive to give you more space, but that isn’t always possible.
Read below to learn the Top 10 reasons why your hard drive can be full and what you can do to rectify the issue including:
- iTunes backups
- Email storage
- Videos
- Other Profiles
- Cloud storage
- Antivirus log files
- Small storage space
- Partitions
- Malware / Viruses
- Photos
- What can I do if my hard drive is full?
iTunes backups
iTunes backups can use an extremely large amount of space on a hard drive. They are also usually stored where many of us don’t always think to look.
Email storage
Your emails can occupy an extensive amount of space. This is usually even more common if you have multiple exchange email accounts installed.
Videos
Keep in mind that each video can be at least 1GB meaning they can use significant space which adds up fast as more videos are saved.
Other Profiles
While your personal profile might not have loads of date, someone else’s could. Check other profiles stored on your hard drive such as email profiles and user profiles.
Cloud storage
Although services such Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud and google drive are cloud storage, when you have them installed on your computer, all your files on the cloud can also be stored locally on your hard drive unless you tell it otherwise.
Antivirus log files
Anti-virus logs are becoming a common culprit of taking up excess space on a hard drive and the issue is often hard to spot. Did you know? Some log files can be over 100GB.
Small storage space
Technology has allowed users to have faster computers with the invention of solid-state storage, however, the cost of this technology can be expensive and result in a small storage drive.
Partitions
Some computer manufacturers and IT people have, and still create interesting partition structures for computers. These are usually a small C: drive or a split hard drive which can cause issues when your computer is configured to only use one of the partitions.
Malware / Viruses
While malware/viruses are a less common cause, it is still possible they can be responsible for taking up excess storage on a hard drive.
Photos
While photos in general are a less common cause of taking up excess space on a hard drive, if you have tens of thousands of photos stored that are high resolution, it could cause a storage issue.
What can I do if my hard drive is full?
If your hard drive is full, it is important not to download a program to find wasted space. Many of these can cause more problems than they resolve or ask you to pay for something you don’t need.
If your hard drive is full, there are certainly ways to free up more space including:
- Move files to an external storage device or two. It’s recommended to not move important, irreplaceable files to just one external device, data loss is so common when an external device fails.
- Get ‘Treesize Free’ by Jam Software and run a scan of your hard drive to see where your data is.
- Run a system cleanup using Windows.
- Employ the services of a computer professional to find the cause of the problem.
David at KCR Offers Complete IT Solutions and Computer Service, Repairs and Upgrades and Can Help with Your Computer’s Hard Drive Storage Issues
KCR IT Solutions provide a range of remote IT support, pro-active monitoring, and managed IT services and can assist with your businesses or homes computer needs.
Based in Kwinana, David can come to you wherever you are South of Perth and meet all your IT needs from initial consultation to installation, to maintenance, backups and everything in between.
Call David today on 0415 599 044.
