By Teresa / Last Updated July 29, 2019

Computer will be much faster and more reliable with an SSD. However, everyone knows that SSD is much more expensive than HDD. Therefore, in common situations, most users will choose as small SSD as possible when it can satisfy their needs. Using small size SSD means you may find the space is not enough sooner or later. You can take full advantage of disk space by wiping ssd (learn SSD erase), optimizing SSD (learn SSD optimization), or using following ways to free up more space. Note that sometimes deleting files doesn’t mean wipe it completely. Trim for SSDmay help you wipe data thoroughly.

Common Ways to Free Up Disk Space in SSD

Free up space in SSD will increase its reading and writing speed in a way, so as to HDD (learn difference on SSD vs HDD write speed). Many users may have thought what does occupy so much storage space on earth on SSD? In fact, many users don’t find much space after installing operating system. Much space had taken up by many different functions which may not be necessary for you to use. Following are the solutions that you can use to free up SSD disk space.

  • Turn off Windows Driver and System Restore

For the users who are extremely satisfied with their operating system and other more advanced features, you can access into system properties to disable the percent of space. The space is used by system to track the installation of programs, drivers, or updates which are usually used to help system recovery. The default setting for this space is 5% of operating system. It is possible for you to disable it completely but in order to avoid you removing a program or upgrading something, Safe Mode is a way for you to make sure things goes smoothly.

  • Reduce Recycle Bin

The default of recycle bin is 10% of your drive. You can change it into the size you need by entering the properties of the recycle bin. This can help you free up some storage space especially for small SSD drives such as 120GB. Furthermore, if you have full confidence, you can reset it into zero. However, if you are a user who thinks the recycle bin is essential for you the method may not suit for you.

  • Hibernation

Hibernation is designed to save power for computers when you don’t use your computer in a period time. The amount of disk space for hibernation should equal to the memory which is installed on system. For instance, if you have a 20GB memory, hibernation also takes up 20GB. If you have larger memory such as 64GB, hibernation is 64GB too, which will have effect on your free space. So when you use SSD, you should think twice before you use it.

  • Migrate OS to SSD

You want to have fast speed on your computer but SSD is expensive. Besides, the larger size you need, the more you will cost. In order to solve this problem, you can only migrate your OS to SSD, and put other files on HDD, which will help you free up a lot of SSD disk space.

Free third-party software AOMEI Partition Assistant is specialized in partition management can help you migrate OS to SSD without losing any data.

Before you do:

  • Make sure your destination SSD has an unallocated space which is equal to or larger than the used space of current OS partition.

  • If you would like to migrate OS from MBR disk to GPT disk, make sure your motherboard supports EFI or UEFI boot.

Step1: Download, install and launch the software. Click "Migrate OS to SSD or HDD" on the left side. And then click "Next" in the pop-window.

Step2: In the next window, choose an unallocated space on SSD as destination place, and then click "Next".

Step3: In the window, you can left move the bar to decide the size of new partition on SSD and then click "Next"

Step4: click "Finish" to read the note about "Boot Operating System". And then you will return the main interface.

Step5: if you want to perform this operation, please click "Apply"

Note:

  • If the operation involves the system partition, the operation will be completed under the PreOS Mode.

  • If you migrate OS between MBR and GPT disks, please enter BIOS and change boot setting (about boot setting, please check your motherboard computer manual) when OS migration is completed.

  • If there is no unallocated space on the destination disk, you can delete useless partition or shrink a large partition to generate some unallocated space.

All above methods are the remedial actions after your SSD is full. However, you can do something like read What size of SSD should I get ahead of time to avoid purchasing inappropriate SSD.

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