# Does space on the hard drive affect computer speed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173 "2003-04-21T23:47:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/21 "2003-04-22T14:19:19Z")
Yep, and every one of them amounts to some nebulous fear of damaging the computer by turning it on and off too often or simple laziness. Servers excepted, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/22 "2003-04-22T14:46:52Z")
I always turn mine off at night-for one thing, it’s in my room, and the glow wouldn’t allow me to sleep. For another, it’s a waste of electricity, and in case of a thunder storm, I don’t have to worry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/23 "2003-04-22T14:58:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > For another, it’s a waste of electricity, and in case of a thunder storm, I don’t have to worry about that. Unless you’ve got it unplugged (or at the very least switched off on a power strip) then you still do have to worry about thunderstorms. Most PCs these days don’t have a physical powerswitch, so that they are still connected to the powerline even thought they are shut off. They must be run that way for the cutesy little pushbutton powerswitch (and keyboard poweron keys) to work. It also has to be that way so that “wake on LAN” and similar things can function. Even though many PCs (especially home PCs) won’t need those options, the hardware (and often the BIOS) are designed with them in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/24 "2003-04-22T15:01:35Z")
I have it on a surge protector/power strip, and yes, I turn that off. ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/25 "2003-04-22T15:04:09Z")
I’m going to have to disagree with **Mines Mystique** on the idea of using Mem Booster, or any other memory boosting app. There’s irony in using an app, that uses resources…to free up resources. **Number** was steering you right. Windows ME does love it’s resources, so disabling all unneccessary apps from laoding at start up, will certainly help. Go into msconfig, and under the start up tab, uncheck any unneccessary things from running at start up. (start…run…type in: msconfig click ok…and check under the start up tab) Here are two links to tell you what those items are: [Msconfig entries](http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm) and [More Msconfig entries](http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/Uncheck.htm) If you have any questions about something you’re not sure about…please post back. Daizy ---
**Author:** ![NoGoodNamesLeft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NoGoodNamesLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoGoodNamesLeft)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/26 "2003-04-22T15:06:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, doesn’t ME have a pretty bad memory leak? If you don’t restart every couple of days the RAM starts to get used up and Windows doesn’t clean it out YES! This is the answer. (I had it). And the leak can suck memory every few hours if you keep opening & closing large programs (see Photoshop). Basically, the memoray allocated to open programs does not get released (or freed up) when the program is closed. Microsoft is well aware of the problem, and does nothing to fix it. I upgraded to XP to finally get rid of it. ---
**Author:** ![Lagged2Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ac8455/32.png) [@Lagged2Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lagged2Death)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/27 "2003-04-22T16:57:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > **My sister keeps telling me that when the computer gets slow, it’s because we have too much stuff on the hard drive. I try to tell her memory is different, but she refuses to listen.** Your sister has a point, but it’s probably not the cause of the trouble. Windows ME (which you mention is the version you have in another post) is _terrible_ in a lot of ways. It has built-in “maintenance” tasks that slow the system down and fill the disk up without contributing much. A full or nearly full hard disk can be slower than a less-full one. Defragmenting the files on the disk helps, but a defragmented drive that’s 30% full is going to be much faster than a defragmented drive that’s 80% full. A full drive tends to require more slow, long-distance seeks, and it will spend more time accessing the slower inner tracks. The effect is probably too small to be the cause of much trouble in a home-office situation, but sysadmins of big, speed-critical file servers have been known to under-partition hard disks (using a 20GB drive as a 10GB) to force the use of only the fastest outer tracks. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nanoda \* > **IIRC, the windows swap file is created on a contiguous section of disk, and is non-relocatable (and thus mostly immune to fragmentation).** Sadly, this is not the case with most versions of Windows, unless you’ve taken the trouble to specifically set this up. The default setting is to “Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings,” which causes the swap file to grow, shrink, re-locate and fragment willy-nilly. Specifying a fixed swap file size (and thus hopefully getting a contiguous region of disk for it) can cause some apps (like MS Word 2000, for one) and games to freak out, so it may be better for most people just to live with it. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/28 "2003-04-22T23:12:51Z")
Another thing, Windows uses 12% of your HD for Restore, unless you change that setting… I do, I drag the bar to the smallest setting possible. 12% is a lot & if you look at your restore folder Guinastasia, I bet it’s pretty big. ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/29 "2003-04-23T08:21:48Z")
Which Windows, Handy? Windows Me, Windows XP? Windows != Windows for all values of Windows. ---
**Author:** ![Lagged2Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ac8455/32.png) [@Lagged2Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lagged2Death)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/30 "2003-04-23T15:01:15Z")
The “System Restore” utility is, AFAIK, a “feature” of Windows ME only, which is the version the OP was concerned with. My experience with Windows ME’s system restore was that it would allow you to move the hard disk consumption slider around, but it would as likely as not ignore the setting. My system was supposed to be limited to 200MB, but it cheerfully chewed up about 1GB of space anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9dc877/32.png) [@Mr\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/31 "2003-04-23T15:21:59Z")
I had this problem, my pc just started to slow down no matter how many times I defragged and I found this tip: (Please note I’m not an expert and if you do use this tip make sure you back up your reg) Open your registry and find the key [HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]. Create a new sub-key named ‘AlwaysUnloadDll’ and set the default value to equal ‘1’ to disable Windows holding the DLL in memory. Restart Windows for the change to take effect. I have this problem no more. (: ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/32 "2003-04-23T15:33:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lagged2Death \* > \*\*The “System Restore” utility is, AFAIK, a “feature” of Windows ME only, which is the version the OP was concerned with. > > My experience with Windows ME’s system restore was that it would allow you to move the hard disk consumption slider around, but it would as likely as not ignore the setting. My system was supposed to be limited to 200MB, but it cheerfully chewed up about 1GB of space anyway. \*\* And from what a coworker tells me, Windows XP sets restore points, too. That’s why I asked. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/33 "2003-04-23T15:41:40Z")
I don’t remember if Restore was part of W98, but I know I have it on Me & XP home. To reset to a smaller value, I turn Restore off, restart the computer, turn restore on, change slider & restart the computer. That can be pretty hairy if you’re doing it during a storm 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/34 "2003-04-23T17:23:32Z")
Windows 98 does not have the restore feature. Daizy ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/35 "2003-04-23T17:34:14Z")
Windows 98 didn’t have restore. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/36 "2003-04-23T21:44:29Z")
From MS: How to Manually Restore the Windows 98/Me Registry " Under normal circumstances, Windows is capable of detecting and recovering from registry errors automatically. If Windows is incapable of this, a previous copy of the registry can be restored manually. Windows makes and stores a backup of the registry when you start your computer successfully each day. By default, five previous copies or the registry are stored. To restore one of these previous copies:" Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 221512 ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173/37 "2003-04-24T05:54:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Urban Ranger \* > \*\*Since Explorer (i.e., your desktop) is a GDI application, and adding icons and such will cause Explorer to use up more resources. \*\* I understand that icons on the desktop use resources, but I can’t seem to find any cite on the net offering information on the percentage of resources used by desktop icons. Would 20 more icons on the desktop cause a 1% increase in system resources used, or 10% ? If it’s less than 1%, I don’t see it as a factor when considering things that eat up system resources, if it’s closer to 10% I stand corrected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-space-on-the-hard-drive-affect-computer-speed/170173.md?page=1)