The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Hard Drive free space

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Waltz, Apr 25, 2009.

  1. Waltz

    Waltz Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    117
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I remember hearing before that you should keep about 25 percent of your hard drive space free so the hard drive can operate more efficiently. Does anyone know if this is true?
     
    Waltz, Apr 25, 2009
    #1
  2. jaredy

    jaredy Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    793
    Messages:
    2,876
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Well if you are talking about fragmentation and wanted to defrag....yes it helps having free space so that the drive can just write/read sequentially and hopefully not have to jump around too much. Defragging with free spaces makes it easier for the drive to reorganize the files in a more efficient manner.

    But it is not as if the hard drive breaks if you use all its capacity...
     
    jaredy, Apr 25, 2009
    #2
  3. Hep!

    Hep! sees beauty in everything

    Reputations:
    1,806
    Messages:
    5,921
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    206
    On a system drive though it is generally a good idea to keep 15% free.
     
    Hep!, Apr 25, 2009
    #3
  4. jaredy

    jaredy Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    793
    Messages:
    2,876
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    And window's defrag requires 15% free to start defragging, however there are a lot of 3rd party options out there that are better :) (and don't demand 15% free).
     
    jaredy, Apr 25, 2009
    #4
  5. MidnightSun

    MidnightSun Emodicon

    Reputations:
    6,668
    Messages:
    8,224
    Likes Received:
    231
    Trophy Points:
    231
    The number I've heard is 20%, but yes, it's best to keep the drive from being completely full - I remember reading that there's a performance impact if remaining space is low, but I'm not positive.
     
    MidnightSun, Apr 25, 2009
    #5
  6. Snakecharmed

    Snakecharmed Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    298
    Messages:
    289
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Shoot, I'll buy a new hard drive if I have less than 50% free space.
     
    Snakecharmed, Apr 26, 2009
    #6
  7. pacmandelight

    pacmandelight Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    260
    Messages:
    909
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Microsoft's NTFS format likes some free space on the drive. Otherwise, there will be some performance degradation and possibly fragmentation.

    If you are just going to use the drive for just storage (not system drive), then you might be able to get away with less free space (like 5-7% free space).
     
    pacmandelight, Apr 26, 2009
    #7
  8. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,038
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    105
    There's always fragmentation on NTFS whether the hdd is full or not. The performance degration is almost always due to the physical limition of hdd and fragmentation.
     
    jackluo923, Apr 26, 2009
    #8